Megan Palmer

Tereza Okava wrote:I cook a persimmon "jam" (more like a compote) just enough to make it stable in the fridge for a week, so my husband can throw it into his oatmeal every morning. He gets up way too early and runs on autopilot, so he's not going to cut up a persimmon like I would, but he can put a plop of jam in.
In fact I make this year round with whatever fruit i have on hand. Right now I have a jar of slightly cooked mango, and when pickings are really slim I'll make a compote of dried dates or even raisins.

In NZ, water bathing is the most common method of preserving, pressure canning is not the norm.

Your compotes sound like perfect candidates for water bathing and the fruit would only need to be barely softened enough to fit into the jars easily as they would continue to cook in the water bath.

If you have a surplus of persimmons and any other fruit that you would normally compote, you could water bath several jars at a time for use throughout the year to give hubby a bit of variety out of season.

Our pantry is well stocked with peach, apricot, apple, rhubarb compotes that are over a year old that do not have any added sugar in them - if the jar lid bulges or there are signs of bubbles, I wouldn’t eat them but touch wood, that is yet to happen to me.

My 90 year old mum spends 6 months of the year living with us in a self contained studio and the rest of the year with my sister.

She is still very mobile however we are mindful that any slips or falls could be very dangerous for her.  

We have just returned from a short break in Riverton and visited all the thrift stores in nearby Invercargill.

Mum insisted on calling into a new thrift shop that sells second-hand furniture and lo and behold, we spotted a shower stool right inside the entrance.

It had only been dropped off that day and was a brand that the hospitals use.

My brother had recently offered to buy one for mum but she baulked at the price - over NZ$150 new.

This one was only $35 and we adjusted it to the lowest setting in the shop to ensure that it was comfortable for her.

We also bought a few kitchen items, a wooden handled peach pitter for $2 (already have a plastic one that was cost far too much new and the plastic handle is not nearly as comfortable), a small lidded casserole for mum for $3.

The botanical gardens in Queenstown has several atlantic cedar trees with these cones, the next time that we walk our dog through the gardens will try to remember to take a photo of the tree.

The wood rose is the very top of a fully mature cone and when they drop, the base of the cone often remains attached to the tree and it looks like one of the old fashioned spikes that you put receipts or restaurant order dockets on!

I spend ages nose down trying to spot the perfect cones that have symmetrical petals or are big enough that I can knock off a few petals to attain symmetry!

Our dog always tries to help and inevitably crushes the best ones the very moment I spot them. Fortunately, he's so tiny he does minimal damage unlike our older dog who was a Lab Brittany cross.

Personally, I love the perennial nature of Permies’ threads as it allows me to revisit old posts about fruit trees that I have planted from stones and update progress on their growth over the years.

It allows me to follow the evolution of other people’s gardens, admire and learn from a diverse set of skills from building rocket stoves to painting, metal work, woodwork, chicken keeping, growing edible fungi - far too many to list.

Best of all, it is in a friendly and kind environment that is non judgmental and leaves rooms for other people’s opinions.

Thank you R for reviving Pearl's thread, you have reminded me that I have a box of spray painted Atlantic cedar cones tucked away somewhere.

I recently found another tree where the cones don't get trampled or mown over that I can collect from.

Usually I just spray paint them in silver or gold and stick a flexible doubled over length of florist's wire up through the centre of the cones then a generous blob of glue from a heat gun to secure the wire and keep the "petals" from falling out.

The wire allows the rose to be tied around a bottle of wine or aound a gift.

You may prefer to glue a length of ribbon to the base or wind ribbon around the wire to create a stalk and make a bouquet of wood roses.

If you have a roll of gauze ribbon with wired edges, they can be shaped into a bow, fastened in the middle with a length of thin wire and the wood rose hot glued into the centre of the rose to make an even fancier decoration to attach to a gift.

One Christmas, my mother in law made a beautiful centre piece for the dining table with the wood roses, candles, fresh holly branches and ivy.

It would be lovely to see other people's pine cone creations.

If you enjoy Donna Leon’s books, you may want to read Andrea Camillieri’s Montalbano series that were made into an excellent tv series that you can watch for free on Beamafilm, an app that is available through your library card membership.

Both authors’ books can also be downloaded for free on Libby, another library card app that also has audio books.

The minimum time I spend would be 15 minutes to empty the water bowls - there are three old pyrex dishes, that i give a quick scrub before filling with fresh water, check if the feeders need topping up.

I clean the poop out of their coop daily and transfer to old feed bags for use in the garden. Their laying area is not segregated so gets poopy otherwise.

If I am.not.short of time, there are two old tyres that we throw kitchen scraps into and I like to fork it over to allow the chickens tl scratch around for worms.

Again, time permitting, I will top up the wood chip mulch in their run and rake over all the holes that they've dug and collect overgrown greens to hang up for them to peck.

There are lots of brassicas, comfrey, chickweed, sorrel and other assorted vegetables growing in the community garden where our chickens are so they get plenty of supplementary food.

In winter, they get trays of sprouted wheat that we germinate in the tunnel house and friends give me the bones after they butcher wild game - deer, goats etc that get boiled up and fed to the chickens to peck clean of meat.

When the fruit start ripening, there are also windfall apricots, peaches, plums and apples so the 15 minutes can easily stretch to an hour or more!

The pendant light above our dining table and white ceiling with sootymarks from our woodburner that needs repainting

A fiery sunrise

The food that is served in our household is extremely diverse, Chinese, Indian, Thai, Singaporean, Maltese, Italian, French, traditional British, antipodean, reflecting our respective upbringings.

Our spice drawer is equally diverse.

To me, spicy does not equate to heat, we often omit chili or tone it right down otherwise it can overwhelm all the flavours.

I often buy whole spices and toast and grind them as needed to avoid them going stale.

We like cooking with herbs and spices as it adds interest to our meals and makes eating them more enjoyable.

We also appreciate simple dishes with just salt and pepper and/or fresh herbs to allow the flavours of the produce shine so not every meal is highly spiced.