Dam Hot Jam

All I could think about at work tonight was whether or not my Habanero Pepper Jam (aka Dam Hot Jam) finally set well after I left the house. It was looking sort of soft, despite my following my recipe right down to the gram and degree (in Celsius!). Hopefully a few days sitting will do it some good. It started out like this:










And ended up like this:














And completely unrelated, tonight at work I re-read a poem from a one-page publication entitled "Menu-poems." It's put out by Alimentum: The Literature of Food. It's a cool little literary journal dedicated solely to the literature of food. Food writing. This is my favorite poem from the bunch:

Eating Out Without
by Michele Battiste

the baby, without the body listing
and pitching off my lap; without quick
fingers that dart into sauces, squeeze
the butter, chuck the bread. Restaurant
dining without mashed biscuit smashed into
cleavage, without Pelligrino toppled
and soaking the puff-pastry shell. Without
the babe, I order the snails. Indulgent —
but not for the butter, the garlic,
the price — solely to feed only myself
with the exquisite, silver, child-sized
fork.

In the mean time, have I mentioned our dog Bubba? We are in love with our dog. He is brilliant, cute, and funny. Also very loveable and likes to snuggle, preferably underneath all the blankets at the bottom of the bed. He has a good life here on the farm: