Nixon's Enemies List Was Nothing

[rinue]

Something you don't get to say every day: "I am glad to hear you have a parasite." My friend Kim's son is out of the hospital and well on the way to recovery from his heart trouble. On the grand scale of things, it's definitely worse to find your engine has failed than that your access to it has been cut by hijackers.

(P.S. I thought for a long time that the lojack was named after a person who had invented it.)

I am in the middle of making the much-discussed mulberry galette, and it smells wonderful although I am sure the crust will be tough as hell (because I live in Texas and you try making a butter crust in Texas in May; I have seen people cry, and my mom, who is an excellent baker, expects it to fail more than half the time). As I was milling four cups of mulberries by hand, since I don't own a mechanical mill, I started thinking about "The Little Red Hen," and it occurred to me belatedly that although the message I thought I was taking from it as a child was "get off your ass and help out if you want some of the bread" (which is a resounding message to someone who likes fresh bread, and therefore I think to everyone), the message I in fact internalized was "if nobody will help you do a difficult thing, fucking do it anyway," which has put me in good stead.

I have also internalized "and if you want to be vindictive about that later, go for it," but have thus far lacked the opportunity to put it into effect.*

*I do believe in sharing, and disagree with the Ronald Reagan version of the story, viz socialism is wrong. This is explicitly about calling out people who refused to help you when asked, not about cutting out people who did not have the opportunity to help you or themselves. Big damn difference. Note that the Red Hen owns a field and tools, which implies a certain amount of societal help. This is also not to imply that I did not have help with the galette, which I did amply from concept through execution.

Comments

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Freeze the butter and use a food processor to make crust in hot weather! As long as you move quickly, meaning, have your filling ready, it won't have time to go to mush.

I used to pass a mulberry tree on my way to work, it must have been quite old. The sidewalk would be purple underneath it.

Are you going to try to do some jam also? Do they freeze?

[rinue.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, the problem doesn't seem to be with butter melting; it's something to do with the humidity affecting the flour, as near as I can tell. And for all my complaining, the crust this time turned out great, although I departed from the recipe when the pastry wasn't looking right and started sprinkling in more water (and then more flour) until I got the right consistency. I also indulged my innate desire to knead things, and even though in theory this was a terrible idea it worked out. (Probably partly because I tend to have cold hands.)

I am not quite sure about the tolerances of mulberries and will continue to experiment. I used to have a Red Mulberry tree in my yard, but it was young enough that there was never enough fruit at one time to attempt anything dramatic. The mulberries in front of Chad's are black mulberries (presumably Texas Mulberries), which are much sweeter than red ones and a little less intense. I can't imagine why either kind wouldn't work pretty much in whatever recipe you'd use for other types of berries, although the flavor will be milder. They definitely don't last long in the refrigerator; you pretty much use them immediately or freeze them (although I've seen an intriguing reference to dried mulberries used like raisins). I have seen but not sampled mulberry wine.

[rinue.livejournal.com]

correction: the Texas Mulberry is some kind of red mulberry black mulberry hybrid, seemingly. My old tree was a Morus rubra and I think this one is a Morus microphyllia. It turns out, to quote Wikipedia, "the taxonomy of Morus is complex and disputed." I think botanists might actually argue about this, perhaps strenuously and while beating fists on desks.

[rinue.livejournal.com]

I will stop spamming after this, as I am seemingly way too manic about replying at the moment (due either to my feeling of triumph or eating too much sugar), but it occurs to me that at least this particular variety of mulberry likely wouldn't need pectin for a jam - the galette set very firmly and did not take long to do so. I don't know whether that's true of other mulberry types.

[valancy.livejournal.com]

Fascinating! I am desperate to have a taste: I have never in my life eaten a mulberry. I am shamed.

[rinue.livejournal.com]

That surprises me. The main trees I associate with Dallas (aside from live oak) are mulberries, followed by pecans and magnolias.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

That would be a huge advantage not just in jam but in things like turnovers, squares, and mixed-berry pies, because juice running all over (and kind of emptying the pastry out sadly) is one of the drawbacks of cooking with berries.

Or, try for jelly or jam, and fill tart shells or meringues with spoonfuls of it. Yum...

[rinue.livejournal.com]

It was pretty amazing how quickly it set. It was like four cups of berries and a quarter cup of sugar, and after 40 minutes of cooking it was almost at candy ball stage.