Relish the Relish

Finally and with much gratitude/relief there are enough tomatoes to start making up batches of relish. My natural inclination is to covet and hoard this stuff - it scores high on the barter value scale. So I need to make at least 4 batches each season to last the coming year plus enough for all those folks who love it and want it and will never know that when I say "sorry that's it", what I REALLY mean is "sorry thats the last your gittin'" cause if I give you another jar, there wont be enough to get Mr Duck and I through until next year. Once you have the perfect relish recipe it spoils you for any other. Replacements and substitutes will not be tolerated.

We made it through the year with 2 huge bottles to spare. Nice going.

This is the second batch. Yes, those are 500ml jars. We take relish very seriously around here.

In other news, the Pretty Boy syndrome is spreading through the local wild cockie population. Small groups of cockies now sit in trees calling each other PRETTY BOY. It is very cute. When I was little, a tame cockie joined the wild flock around the farm I grew up on which resulted in all cockies renaming themselves Henry. The end product was cockies perched in big old Yellow Box trees across the huge valley yelling out "HELLO HENRY!" to each other, and responding the same.

Riding down to visit Ma and Pa Duck Herder today I passed under a casurina tree full of left handed Cockies eating the little nut cone thingies. They were still being left handed on the way back. There have been some SPURIOUS and QUESTIONABLE claims that right handed cockies might exist. May I remind new comers that chain of evidence is important, and one should be getting out there in the REAL WORLD looking at actual cockies in the wild, rather than searching google images for photos of prisoner cockies forced to live in cages and that even I know how to reverse an image. Just because you saw it on the internets doesn't mean it is true. Just sayin'.

Its a funny year for veggies this year. Despite significant preparations and planning, there won't be enough tomatos to do much bottling. I was lamenting this a little bit while I was batching up huge vats of fresh pesto for the freezer when I realized you just have to surrender to what ever is happening and the swings and round abouts of the season. A freezer full of pesto is pretty wonderful. And we have bottles of tomatoes left over from last year.......and there is still a little bit of time before the first frost, so who knows.

Well, thats it. I woke up at 2:00am with monkey mind, but I think I can go back to bed now. Anyway, its hard to type with a cat curled up on my arms while I type. At least she has stopped batting my fingers, and is now just practicing being a dead weight.

If anyone has any delicious ways to preserve eggplant, I would love to hear. Its a sucky year for marties, but great for aubergine.

nighty night.