how commerce was invented...

this was one of the finished (but never shared) posts i mentioned. i honestly do not recall even writing it, but i am happy that i did. reading it now reminds me of a bit of (wholly unsolicited) advice i received back when i was turning thirty (really wish she was around when i turned forty). it went something like this:

your thirties are when you stop worrying about people around you, and realize that it is okay to own your own crazy. the best part is when you find yourself surrounded by people who are willing to share their crazy with you. you can sit down to laugh and talk together, each person doing their own crazy thing... and that is totally okay. 

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there are a few reasons why i make note of so many ridiculous conversations i have with the animator. sometimes it is the absurdity of what passes for adult conversation around here. sometimes it is relevant to whatever nonsense i plan to talk about. but, sometimes it is for purely preemptive purposes. i am just gathering evidence for when i i have to explain to a Judge and Jury that he had it coming. [and, just like that... i will be humming 'Cell Block Tango' for the rest of the night, which always makes him understandably concerned.]  

this time around, the provocation (nice legal term there) involved a series of conversations over three consecutive days. it began when he got off the phone with one of the people working on the series he is directing...

him: that was [beekeeper guy]. he asked if you needed more honey, so i said we were good for now. then he asked if we were using it, and i told him yes. we use it in tea and sometimes in cooking, and that you used some of it in the soap you just made.

me: oh, for fu... what did i tell you about telling people about this stuff? he's gonna think i'm some kind hippie who makes her own soap.

him: he was all excited. he loves that kind of stuff. i told him you'll trade him some of your soap for more honey.

me: great! i'm trading soap for honey. that's one step closer to smelling like patchouli and living in a commune. 

the next day...

him: i was just talking to [another animator]. he asked if we were watching anything for Halloween, so i told him we were doing werewolf movies this year.

me: uhm... ok.

him: he asked if American Werewolf in London was on the list, and i told him it was, but we'll probably skip that one because i've seen it so many times, and you watched it with me a couple times already.

me: ok.

him: then he suggested Ginger Snaps, and i told him that you refuse to watch it because it's about teenagers. i told him that you don't like stuff about teenagers and all their teenage problems and teenage drama. i told him you mostly watch stuff with old people. 

me: what the...?

him: then he joked that you probably like Matlock, so i told him that you do. and Murder She Wrote, and a bunch of British shows with old people, like Last of the Summer Wine and Dad's Army and that sort of stuff. 

me: why??? why are you telling people stuff like this about me. now they think i'm a soap-making hippie who's obsessed with old people. 

him: well... it's true, right?

then i just walked away, before i was overcome by the urge to end him. i wake up a day later, and what is the first thing he says to me?

him: i just forwarded you something that [yet another animator] sent for you. 

me: uhm...?

him: it's about dyeing yarn with mushrooms.

me: seriously... you need to stop having these conversations about me with other people?  

him: are you kidding? he was excited to share this with you. he's all about mushrooms. he goes foraging for them, and he has tons of books all about mushrooms.

me: great. so now they think that i'm a soap-making hippie who dyes yarn with mushrooms while watching shows about old people. good grief!

him: look, you gotta understand that they love that sort of stuff around here. in their eyes, you're amazing.

then he paused briefly before adding...

him: in my eyes... you're insane. 

any. day. now. already got my 'statement to the Court' ready to go and everything. 

me: Your Honor... i betcha you would have done the same!

 and, yes... i traded the beekeeper some of the soap i made (with honey from his hives) for more honey. doesn't everyone have a honey guy?

i did warn him that this was a particularly exfoliating batch, as it included a generous amount of rolled oats. i believe in a good hard scrub in the shower, or why even bother, right? just talking about homemade honey-oat soap here. 

note the difference between the freshly-cut piece (left) and the dried out bit from the edge (right). the drying will continue through the curing process (about two months), resulting in a lighter color overall.

it is hard to tell from this angle, but i made wayyy too much of the stuff. 

i had to take a break and pry my fingers away from the pastry cutter long enough to relax my hand. 

finally, it was done. seriously... what was i (over)thinking when i made this much soap? i am convinced that 'trading overstocked crazy' is how commerce was invented. prove me wrong!

ready for a viral apocalypse...

judging by the amount of coughing and throat clearing happening of late, i think it is fair to say that the first viral outbreak of the season has reached our humble little home.

we are taking every known precaution to minimize the impact, lest it develops into anything even remotely resembling last Winter's near-death flu. i just made my favorite animator a cup of the most locally-sourced tea imaginable. the dried mint was from the balcony garden project, and the honey was from a new-to-us source, which is the subject of this post.

i was wondering aloud recently as to whether we had stockpiled enough honey to survive another potential outbreak of the viral apocalypse, when he said the magic words that would change my whole universe.

him: Francois [fellow animator] is a beekeeper. i think he has honey from them.
me: whoa! we know a beekeeper? why am i just hearing about this?
him: oh, i thought i mentioned this before.

then i gave him that look that i reserve for moments when he has been keeping important stuff from me.

him: want to try some of his honey?
me: uhm... is that even a question?

fast-forward a couple days later when he messages me to say that he was bringing some of the honey home. i fully expected a small glass jar that would last a couple-few weeks of herbal tea drinking. what i got instead was a small plastic pail with two kilograms (roughly four-and-a-half pounds) of the stuff.

i am fairly certain that my eyes went saucer-wide when he lifted the container out of the bag. then i clapped and squeed a few times. i may be an unapologetic curmudgeon, but i still get excited about the important things in life.

naturally, i could not wait to break the seal and remove the cover. i cannot begin to do justice to the wave of fragrance that came rushing out from under that lid. a good honey should tell you where it came from as the nectar retains the floral notes of the parent plants, and this honey smelled like laying in a field of clovers on a warm Summer's day.

me: did he specify what kind of honey it was?
him: yeh, he said it was mostly clover.

i can hear what you are thinking, and i tend to agree. it really is frighteningly disturbing when i actually know things.

not gonna lie... i wanted to dip my whole hand into the center of that bucket of happiness, then stand there licking honey off my fingers like an overexcited child. however, self-control prevailed, and i settled instead for a metal chopstick.

should anyone have looked in my window just as i was done taking this picture, they would have been deeply puzzled as to why i was standing there with my eyes closed and a big smile on my face as i repeatedly licked a metal chopstick. can you even...?

i had just gotten through my honey-tasting when a sudden shift in the light outdoors caught my attention. we have been having some intensely dramatic sunsets around here of late. trust me... that photo does not do justice to the bright orange and bubble-gum pink tones. it was sheer madness!

me: maybe there is a wildfire burning somewhere west of here.
him: or maybe it's the Apocalypse. 

so now i have to add "prepare for the Apocalypse" to my to-do list. i still need to find a local crafter of wooden stakes, in case it turns out to be a vampire outbreak, and i probably should start working on my hand-to-hand combat skills for when society devolves into a Thunderdome-esque fight for survival.

however, with my stockpile of honey, i can safely say that i am ready for a viral apocalypse. bring it on, Winter.

day 4: aphid-ooze honey...

i saw a squirrel shivering on a windowsill this morning, and i almost felt sorry for it. Winter is wacky enough in Canada, but when you factor in being on an island in the middle of massive river, it is downright insane. the overnight temperatures are in the mid thirties... mid minus thirties, that is... with the wind-chill making it feel like the minus-mid-forties. you know that has to be cold, even if you do not speak Celsius.

the local news is splashed with weather-advisory warnings in bold red letters, and constant suggestions to remain indoors unless absolutely necessary. hypothermia sets in quickly under such conditions, so the police even take the extraordinary step of rounding up the homeless population, and transporting them to the shelters around the city. simply put, there is no playing around in these kinds of temperatures.

we are weathering the cold spell by avoiding the outdoors. there are currently three notices on the table for packages to be picked up at the local post office, two of which i know for a fact contain yarn, and they are going to have to remain there until it warms up by at least ten or fifteen degrees. yep... i am not going out for yarn. that is when you know that it is insanely cold.

we are also drinking absurd amounts of tea. this is a common practice around here in the colder months, but the cups-per-day count has almost doubled over the past week... which brings me to the point of today's post.

we do not get into the whole "watch me eat this piece of meat that has been fermenting in a sewer pipe for the past six months" type of nonsense that seems to rank only second to cat videos in the domination of social media. however we do occasionally come across something that is so genuinely intriguing, it has to be tasted. this was the case when i was watching some random food-related thing on You Tube, and the guy in the video made a passing reference to using pine honey in the dish. pine... what???

me: uhm... sweetie... have you ever heard of something called pine honey?
him: i didn't know pines had flowers. do butterflies even live near pine trees? 

this, naturally, led to lots of googling, as i exist in a constant state of needing too much information about... well... everything. in short, the honey is indeed produced by bees, but unlike the more common honey-production which begins with nectar collected from flowers, this variety begins with waste material collected from lots of bugs.

[full disclosure: this part is potentially a bit gross.] honeydew is a sugary substance that is secreted by some insects that feed on the sap of plants. if you have ever seen a bug with a clear droplet of liquid on some part of its body, or found sticky drops of what looks like dew on a leaf, then you were likely looking at honeydew. bugs drink the sap from the plants, and they excrete waste in the form of a sugary liquid from special glands at their mouth, rear end, or along their skin. honeybees then collect said liquid, and take it back to their hives to begin the magic of honey-making. the resulting product is referred to as a "honeydew honey". like i said, kinda gross.

i love love love honey. it is one of those things that i enjoy trying from different places, as the local plant life has a lot of influence on the taste. try a light, floral clover honey (the more common variety in this area) alongside a dark, malty buckwheat honey, and you will instantly see what i mean.

in the case of pine honey, the honeydew is collected from aphids that feed on the pine resin. resin is lower in water content than nectar, so the resulting honey tends to be thicker than conventional honey. most of the sites i visited also suggested a certain element of "piney-ness" in the end product. oh, yes... i was deeply intrigued.

pine honey is produced chiefly in the Mediterranean region, which meant it would be an imported product... which meant it would be pricey. there is a running joke in our household about echeloning our lifestyle by getting hooked on things that are outside of our usual price range (i spoke about this back when he bought some marmalade made with ten-year-old scotch whiskey). i found a few places selling pine honey online, but most of them had shipping costs that were almost as high as the price of the honey, and a few came with warnings that you may be charged additional import taxes depending on where you live. finally, i found a Canadian company selling pine honey from Greece. so i put it in my shopping cart... then i stared at the "order" button for a while.

him: what if you really like it, and you can't go back to the squeeze bottle of Billy Bee honey from the supermarket?
me: i know. that's why i'm afraid. 

we got a 1kg (roughly, two-and-a-quarter pounds) can of honey, cat sold separately.

it cost $28 (Canadian), not including shipping, which was quite reasonable, as some of the pine honeys i found cost almost twice as much... and that was before you include the tariff and shipping.

the can was full when it arrived, but we have already used quite a bit of it. the first impression upon opening the can was the intensity of the smell. fragrances can be powerful triggers for forgotten memories, and this one took me right back to the many jars of stewed plums my grandmother used to make back in the Caribbean. it is a deep, earthy fruit flavor, like opening a package of really plump prunes, mixed with the rich, sweetness of  dark-brown sugar or a dark maple syrup.

the can had one of those easy-open tops, where you lift the metal ring and peel it back, plus a plastic top for after it was opened. this was quite convenient, as the metal top doubled as a tasting tray. i would love to say that i did not resort to licking the last few drops of honey from said surface before tossing it in the recycling bin, but that would be a lie. the stuff is seriously tasty, and it delivers precisely the profile of flavor you would expect from the smell. most surprisingly, it was slightly less sweet than with most other types of honey, and there was a trace of the earthy, mineral taste you get in maple syrup, and the slightest echo of something reminiscent of a pine tree. who knew aphid-ooze honey would taste so nice!

i plunged a wooden stir-stick into the can, and i was surprised at the resistance with which it was met. the stick leaves an indentation in the honey that takes a few seconds to disappear, and when you lift the stick, the honey seems reluctant to let go. [i had to get my assistant to hold the stir stick while i took these photos.]

this stuff is seriously thick. it has a tackiness similar to the pine resin from which it originated, and it behaves like a taffy mixture near the end stage of candy-making.

you know that candy they make by pouring hot maple syrup onto packed snow? well, i am sure you would get the same result with this stuff, even without heating it up.

this thought occurred to me as i stared through the frosted-over windows at the balcony full of untouched snow... then the wind blew, and i remembered that this is still Canada, and it is still cold. this would be a good time for another cup of tea.