Category

Pickles/Preserves

  • Quince Preserves

    Quince Preserves

    My first awareness of quince came from the movie White Men Can’t Jump when Rosie Perez, whose character dreamed of going on Jeopardy, memorized “Foods That Start with the Letter Q.” (Besides “quince” there was “quail,” “quiche,” and “quahog.” Not sure of the fifth!) But I didn’t eat a quince — or cook a quince…

  • Cara Cara, Blood Orange, and Kumquat Marmalade

    Cara Cara, Blood Orange, and Kumquat Marmalade

    Ever since I saw Paddington 2 (a seriously great movie), I’ve wanted to make orange marmalade. The problem was that every recipe that I read involved letting the fruit soak overnight. Overnight! Does Paddington let the fruit sit overnight in the movie when he has to feed all those prisoners? Methinks not. Consequently, I spent…

  • Sweet and Spicy Pickled Peppers

    Sweet and Spicy Pickled Peppers

    There are many things in this world worth pickling–cucumbers, carrots, pig’s feet (if you happen to have a few lying around)–but my favorite thing to pickle? It’s peppers, just like that tongue-twister about Peter Piper. (How do you pick a peck of pickled peppers, anyway? If they’re pickled, aren’t they in jars? I guess you…

  • Sunday Morning Kumquat Jam

    Sunday Morning Kumquat Jam

    I think this happened last Saturday, but let’s pretend it was Sunday because “Sunday Morning Kumquat Jam” sounds better than “Saturday Morning Kumquat Jam.” Having made my coffee, and contemplating breakfast, I stared at the leftover kumquats sitting in a mesh bag on my counter. They were starting to wrinkle a bit, losing their potency.…

  • Pickled Sugar Snap Peas

    Pickled Sugar Snap Peas

    There’s a very hip restaurant in my neighborhood called Joseph Leonard; you go there, and everyone else is either more attractive or more wealthy than you. There’s a very cool bathroom with a medicine cabinet over the sink that has Q-tips, Altoids and tampons (I bet women wish more restaurant bathrooms had tampons; or maybe…

  • Pickled Yellow Wax Beans

    Pickled Yellow Wax Beans

    Ask someone if they want chocolate cake, chances are they’ll say: “Ya-huh!” Ask someone if they want a pickled wax bean, their reaction may not be so kind. I learned this the hard way after making a jar of pickled yellow wax beans from the Park Slope farmer’s market a few weeks ago. The recipe…

  • Tuesday Techniques: How To Make Jam

    Tuesday Techniques: How To Make Jam

    Craig’s cousin Matt came to stay with us this past week and he and his friend (who also stayed with us) had a wild time. Out every night, hitting up the town, they’d wake up bleary-eyed every morning and ask me what Craig and I did the night before. “We, ummm, bought a keg and…

  • Adam Potter and the Pickles of Azkaban (Plus a Tiny Spell of Family History)

    There comes a point in every young man’s life where he must make a decision. For Harry Potter these decisions are frequently epic: how might I pursue the man who killed my parents? How can I learn the secrets of my past? Potter’s decisions, however, pale next to the heart-wretching decision I had to make…