This and that

[luzula]

1) My teaching starts tomorrow. It is a course I have never taught before, with first-year students, and all online. Wish me luck...

2) I have picked a total of 7.5 liters of lingonberries, quite near my home! Truly it is a wonderful year for berries. I thought lingonberries naturally had a lot of pectin in them, so I did not use jam sugar for my first batch (= sugar with added pectin). But the first batch of jam ended up very loose and did not gel at all! I have ordered some pectin now and intend to re-boil the jam, because ten jars of lingonberries in juice is not what I wanted.

But now I made a second batch, also with no added pectin, and it has gelled up very nicely. It is a mystery...I did add more water the first time, but still. ETA: Upon reflection, it must be the water that made the difference--I actually followed a recipe the first time that said to add a few deciliters of water, and the second time I added almost nothing.

3) Look at this very beautiful pattern! It is the instructions for an 18th century ballroom dance.

Comments

[regshoe]

Oh, thank you for the jam-making advice! Most of the rose hips I've seen are indeed not looking ripe yet. I've eaten some off the bush before (avoiding the seeds!), but not any kind of jelly/syrup or anything—that dessert soup sounds very nice. Yes, haws are hawthorn berries—they're very abundant round here, so it seemed like a good idea to do something with them :D