Indian Pink Lemonade

On September 14, I picked about ten cones/fronds of edible sumac from trees growing wild near a grocery store. These are the furry marroonish cones you see by the roadside often in overgrown, weedy areas. I brought them home in a plastic grocery bag, and put them in the refrigerator. Three days later I:

• Rinsed the fronds in cold water.
• Filled a stainless steel bowl with about two quarts of water.
• Broke up five cones into conelets, and stripped the sticky seeds from them. The seeds are similar to pomegranate. The seed stripping need not be complete or perfect.
• Swished seeds around in the water and let the mixture sit in the sun for about two hours, as if making sun tea. In two hours the water had turned a darkish pink.
• Poured the seed-water mixture through a colander as a coarse filter. This removed most of the seeds and any twigs.
• Used a single cup coffee filter and a funnel to fine filter the remaining liquid which has fine “hairs”.
• Resulting mixture is a very clear, rich pink, and tastes like lemonade without the sugar.
• Added a teaspoon of sugar to an eight ounce glass. This is a matter of taste.
• Drank as I would lemonade.

This was my first attempt at sumac-ade, and it was very easy to do, and quite good. If we, in the northern climes ever get cut off from our southern regions we can still have pink lemonade. The tang is supposedly malic acid, and it resides in the slight bit of hairy fruit that surround the very large seed of the sumac. The trick is to rough up the berries enough in stripping that they release their color and flavor. Sumac is native to New England as I do believe the Native tribes here used it very well.

Three Things Make A Really Good Blog

Jenny Levine, The Shifted Librarian, who is pretty busy, and no nonsense, says this about blogs:

“My major criteria for the blog recommendations are consistent posting over time, frequency (more than once a week), sticking to the topic, and a general sense of value to a public librarian . (Shifted Librarian).

Basically, readers want an article that amazes, surprises, touches, amuses, tells them something they couldn’t know otherwise. As editor/writer, you yourself have to:

• create and maintain an identity
• provide a varied menu of posts
• edit for narrative line, drama, color, pacing, and have a strong point of view.
• solicit and acquire content if your own is not enough.
• come up with ideas for posts.
• imagine what your readers will want to see in the future.
• care about physical layout of graphics, information, and headlines that are easy for your audience.

Some blogs like The Shifted Librarian are so content rich the layout can be functional if not lovely. Others with a more visual emphasis, where layout and visuals are key parts of what people like to see, you have to pay a lot more attention to an aesthetically satisfying experience.

Bread Perfect

This is my first ‘perfect’ bread — amazing what happens when you follow the recipe. My cooking notes are attached. Check out photos the lovely, yummy details of crust and texture here.

Jan 22-07 — KAFlourWhite, 1/2 tsp. yeast, room temp 65F, rise in 80F gas-piloted oven (330pm -initial mix, 530pm -activity visible, 9:30pm -bubbles,12:30am (+9hrs) -very expanded. 8:30AM -slightly down, bubbles covered ). Removed dough, folded onto floured board, rested. Folded over, seam down onto heavily floured cotton cloth, covered into 80F oven, two hours. 10:30 - dough had doubled easily. 10:40 - dough stuck to cloth as I was trying to plop into pre-heated cast iron pan — had to use knife to scrape away from cloth. Cooked covered with dome (inverted mixing bowl), 30 min, and removed at 25 min — bottom burnt. Very hard crust. Makes snap crackle pop noises as its cooling. Oven temperature may not be accurate.

Jan-29-07 - Five Roses Flour, generic whit, 3/8 tsp yeast, rise at room temp 18C, (930PM mix, 930AM well bubbly, 430PM formed ball, put on plate with cornmeal, covered with cloth)