Cumquat Marmalade

I love cumquat marmalade. I used to have terrible trouble sourcing it - you couldn't buy it anywhere and I only knew people with ornamental trees who were loath to part with the fruit. Now it is relatively easy to find for sale and I have friends with a giant tree who encourage people to come and raid it every year.

It is a little bit fiddly to make, cutting all the tiny fruit by hand and picking out the seeds. Sometimes (usually) I leave the seeds in, once you've started cooking it, they tend to float to the top and you can pick them out.

I've got two copies of the recipe, we think the one on the left is my great-great-grandmother's (Mildred [or Big Nan]) and the one on the right is my great-grandmother's (Olive [or Little Nan]). The recipe also works well for lemon marmalade.

Big Nan's Cumquat Jam
4 lbs Cumquats
6 lbs sugar
1 quart water
Prick or cut cumquats and then put on stove with water and boil until soft.
Add sugar and boil for half an hour

Little Nan's Cumquat Jam
4lbs Cumquats
6lbs sugar
1 qrt water
Wash and cut cumquats in slices. Add water, stand over night. Boil until soft, add sugar, boil for two and a half hours.

My version is relative (by weight) to how many cumquats I picked.
2 parts Cumquats
3 parts sugar
1 part water
Wash and cut cumquats in quarters. Add water and stand overnight.
Boil until soft then add sugar and boil until it passes the test where it turns to jelly on the plate you had in the freezer.
Fish out the seeds that have floated to the top.

The Willow Housewife's Handbook on Cookery

I have my great great grandmother's cookbook. It is the Willow Housewife's Handbook on Cookery, but the recipes I use the most are the handwritten ones. I love working straight from the hand written notes, but I'm going to start putting them up here so I don't lose them/can find them again.

One cat always leads to another?

 So I got it in my head that my poor scared BeeBee-Ate needed a friend to keep her company and show her how to be a cat. I made a list of personality traits I thought a second cat would need to fit in well with Bee and help, not hinder her. (Gentle, confident, playful, likes games of chasy, calm).

I found one cat on petrescue who I thought might suit. I went out to meet her, but she didn't seem to have enough 'play' to keep up with Bee. The woman who is fostering her recommended I stop in at the Lost Dogs Home, and to get a boy cat because she said they are smoochier and fit in better with other cats.

I looked at all the cats at the Lost Dogs Home and didn't see any that fit the bill. I looked at the kittens for half a second, but I didn't think Bee or I needed a kitten in our lives. Then as I walked out the door I thought again of the funny shivery little grey cat with a big metal staple in her guts who'd been pressing her self up against the glass of her enclosure when I went past. The staff didn't know anything about her. The home have waived the fee of adult cats for the month of July, so the cats have been moving through quickly and she'd only been in the adoption centre for an hour and a half. I went back and asked to look at her and she leapt into my arms and snuggled under my chin. Her little hip bones were sticking out and I was a goner. It just remained to be seen what BeeBee thought of her and the staff at the home reassured me I could bring her back if it all went to hell.

I followed the excellent advice of Pammy on adding a new cat to your household, but the beginning was a time of great stress and anxiety for me and the cats. Bee was horrified at the fuzzy little interloper. She stopped playing, she stopped eating, she hid all the time, her fur started falling out in little clumps that seemed to shoot off her every time she heard the new cat. The new cat was disgusted at being shut into a room on her own and just wanted to come oooooout and be frieeeeeeennnnnnnds.

But it has been gradually getting better, and today (eleven days after I brought the new cat home) I left them out together while I went to work and, when I got home, they both ran to greet me at the door.

I haven't worked out the new cat's name yet. I wanted to hold off until Bee agreed that she could stay. I was thinking Marilla, but for all that she's tiny wee bit of a thing she's a bit of a thug and Ripley suits her better (though I have trouble saying it). I'm also keen on Watson, and Tink or Starr are contenders.

It turns out the new cat has all the qualities on the list, though she is a little too enthusiastically affectionate for Bee's taste. She plays twice as hard as Bee, can leap extraordinary heights and has a predilection for destroying cardboard boxes.