Unbridled Domesticity...

I've never been much of a fan of "household hints" -- no time, or no trust, or both.  There are a number of Domestic Stratagems I learned from my mother or my mother-in-law, my aunts, a few girl friends...but not many.  That said, I seem to have amassed a huge collection of print-out Nifty Advice.

So it is disconcerting to find suddenly I'm developing a taste for these things.  Instance.  According to the expert instructions, I concocted a "Fruit Fly Trap."  One small glass of apple cider vinegar, three drops of dishwashing detergent, set it on the kitchen counter near where I prepare fruit and vegetables.  Son of a gun, this morning, if it wasn't full of little Drosophila Melanogaster corpses.  Well, not full, but more than a few.  Bless my soul.  It worked.  What next.

Well, actually, I think I know what next.  Somebody here is recommending that vodka be substituted for water in making pie-crust.  I have pie-crust mix (home-made); I have vodka.  It almost seems...MEANT TO BE.

Perhaps I've spent too much time and effort in pickling and canning, this month...culminating today in a session with my commere in which we made Barbara Kingsolver's triple-threat recipe.  First you make a tomato-based barbecue sauce, and jar up some--not all--of it, and process it in the canner.  Then you add peaches and sugar and what not to the residue, cook it down, jar (again) just some of the new mixture, and process it in turn.  And finally additional raisins and walnuts (and we thought up some additional seasonings) produce chutney -- in rather more than the manageable volumes indicated by the recipe.

All three products tasted different, were slightly differently hued...and MOST tasty.  So La Commere and I are wafting about this evening in an aura (or maybe MIASMA) of PICKLE and domestic accomplishment.

Enough to make anyone feel an affinity with Heloise.  Or something that starts with Hel-.  Like, perhaps, a Helgramite.  So there is a picture of a Helgramite at the head of this post.

Stay tuned for further "Helgramite's Helpful Household Hints."  Yes.

Oh while we waited for the jars, all 27 of them, to cool, we drank ginger tea and reformed the church, the entire church, root and branch, from top to bottom and from stem to gudgeon.  MOST satisfying.