Damson and chevre

With one car for the household, sometimes logistics get interesting. I'm grateful on a rainy day to get a chance to use the car to buy a few things for what I'm cooking today. Gavin need the car back soon, though -- and we're expecting my friend Cory to come get Joseph for a birthday party several-day-sleepover in Eugene. So I fly away to put gas in the car, hit Trader Joe's and perhaps the Coop, and home in 45 minutes. The horses are on the track -- and out the gate!

At TJ's, the parking lot is packed, and shopping carts are full. I realize that I won't be able to hit another store for anything significant before heading home, after these lines. So in line, I strike up a conversation with the woman behind me.

"Busy today!" we agree. It's the first rains of the incipient autumn this weekend. Yesterday, Joseph and I lay belly down on my bed, heads out the bedroom window, soaking up the wet smell like some nutrient we'd forgotten we needed, feeling somehow softer and tender in the susserating patter of leaves and rain. "Everyone decided if the rains are here, it's time to nest and cook!"

Recently, I forget where, someone reviewed Portland as a city on the top 20 list in the world for food. With the richness of our natural setting, our great agriculture, the ocean, the Pacific stir-fry of cultures -- we are a remarkably homogenous and homey cosmopolitan center. We love food, and we also love to run it off -- our outdoor and health focus sets us apart, I feel, from other urban food meccas such as NYC or Rome.

On the way home, I frantically stop at Fred Meyer's for small-mouth jar lids and rings, having not found my own. I'm making blackberry jam this afternoon from the first six cups of the two gallons Andrea brought back from Sauvie Island yesterday. I know we have jars, but not where lids and rings may be.

I call Gavin as I run into Freddie's -- I'll be ten, maybe fifteen minutes late. Shortly later, I'm running out again with the jar lids and a Sunday Oregonian.

Home, I make myself a sandwich on sunflower/spelt bread, with damson jam and Silver Goat chevre from TJ's. Feeling clever, I point out to Gavin (who can't eat high whey cheeses) that this nutty but bland chevre makes a good substitution for cream cheese. His eyes go a little wide at the thought -- the food allergy testing was just a few months ago, and he's still adjusting.

Gavin and Andrea go to Sauvie Island again, to help their friends clear the site where their wedding took place yesterday. They'll be home for dinner.

My sandwich sits on the plate as I set up the jam, and also heat milk in a bain marie for the yogurt maker. A bit later, Cory arrives, and the sandwich is barely touched. I show Cory through the new house and he's enthralled. On the way through the kitchen, I hold up the sandwich: "Bite this!" My friends trust me when I say that. He's appreciative, even more so when I tell him about the damson jam and today's chevre revelation.

Joseph and Cory out the door, I inhale the steam from the jelly pot, and think about this post. The sandwich is still on the plate. But the jelly should be just about cooked. Time to can it!