Relief from winter doldrums: 4. Fun in the Kitchen

Yes, the Phytophactor likes to cook and make things in the kitchen having had the fortunate childhood background of parents who cooked and still did lots of "old fashioned" things like canning fruits and vegetables, making katsup, jam, & jelly, and smoking their own bacon and ham. Once you know what the real stuff is like, and have the satisfaction of having made it yourself, the commercial facsimilies seldom compare well. A surplus of red currents and cranberries long stored in the freezer were turned into a wonderful jelly. A stash of black and yellow mustard seeds and a bottle of stout that was not to my liking were combined into a stout mustard. A big pot of mulligatawny soup was made to keep us fed a couple of days during our busy week. And lastly a whole array of items were combined into a batch of home made Worchestershire sauce, and even more amazing, everything needed (tamarind concentrate, molasses, soysauce, anchovy fillet, cardomom, chile de arbol, cinnamon stick, garlic, ginger, onion, sugar, pepper corns, cloves) was in the cupboards! This amazing recipe came from Saveur magazine (Jan. 2009), and is well worth the effort, but the 3 week wait while it all steeps challenges the patience. And the frigid weekend passed without hardly a moments boredom.