Haven't mentioned that we got the bushel of onions we ordered from our CSA. I was expecting the tomatoes to arrive first, and had, quite frankly, forgotten about the onions. "How do we store these things?" I asked Kevin, who has exactly as much expertise as me, so I relied on the google consensus. Dry or cure the onions first, then store in mesh baskets, or--a more creative option--pantyhose. I've got loads of old pantyhose (my current job doesn't exactly come with a dress code), so that's my eventual plan ... once I get these onions off my table. We have a huge dining-room table, very plain but long, and virtually half of it is now overtaken by our curing onions. Kevin teased the kids that they would have to eat three raw onions every night to get rid of them. These are big, beautiful yellow onions, and I started to do the math on how many we'd need if we were to feed ourselves with stored onions over the winter. Say, one per day, or even five per week (not much for us; I use onions in virtually everything), that adds up to ... well, a lot more than what's on our table currently. How did people survive before grocery stores??? If we were to rely on what I've put up this summer, we'd be hungry before Thanksgiving ... and I'm trying hard. Anyway, the onions are supposed to cure for 2-4 weeks before storage. This might impede our hosting ability ...
Today was Nina's buying club. She had extra help this week, and it felt very well-organized and smooth, even though a lot of people were there when I was. AB sold sweets, as she's done before. I got a half-bushel of blue plums, so we had to make room in the fridge for them. We hadn't gotten through our apricots, so I halved them, removed the pit, and froze them on baking sheets in the freezer till solid, then popped them into bags. My canning/freezing guide recommended a syrup or sugar pack instead, but I'm hoping that's just to keep the colour; too much extra work, plus I don't like sugary things. I tasted one frozen and it was delicious, so maybe this will be a winter fruit treat when we're eating nothing but apples. I also put away two bags of plums since some arrived a bit over-ripe. But they are delicious. My fruit plan this summer is to binge on whatever's in season. We will survive on apples and the occasional never-seasonal fair trade banana in the winter, so let's celebrate the variety and flavour of summer fruit.
This evening, I had to skip joining the family at Buskerfest, which is happening just up the street from us. There was simply too much work to be done. I had four days' worth of laundry sitting unfolded in baskets, plus diapers to fold, plus the day's dishes, plus these apricots to put up, plus the main floor looked like small people had been randomly flinging every toy in the house while simultaneously half-putting together every puzzle and dumping every game with small pieces, while inventively scissoring and pasting sheaves of scrap paper. For days. Which is exactly what had been happening. It was 7 before Kevin got the kids out the door to eat their Buskerfest supper (hot dogs and sausages; gelato for dessert), so I stayed home instead and fiendishly attacked the disaster that was our home. I'm only just done and it's past midnight. (Okay, that's an exaggeration--I did a few other things between now and 7pm, including sit on the couch and drink a beer.) I won't be able to clean tomorrow, because Kevin will be painting in the kitchen and dining-room. He's going to take the week off work specifically to get this done, and we wanted to get a jump on it. We're both hoping it won't take the whole week, so that we can enjoy a bit of a family holiday, too, before school starts.
School starts ...!!! I'm not ready. This has been such a fine summer. And I love having all my kids around me. They're such great kids. I realize every parent will tell you this, and every parent who does is absolutely right.Labels: apricots, CSA box, freezing, kids, local food, Nina's buying club, onions, plums, storing