With an unexpected haul of beautiful quince from the Berkshires thanks to friend, chef and meat expert Rob, our autumn quartet is complete.

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of cooking quince– as labor intensive as it is (see my posts from last year…you cook and cook quince, and then finally, you’re ready to start cooking it…) watching it change from creamy white to orange-ish to rosy orange is like magic every time.

But if you can’t deal with the scrubbing, peeling, cutting (more like hacking), cooking, just having a bowl of the fruit on the table lends a heady fragrance to a room. We are absolute fans.
Go quince!!!
 

 

Back after two years, so happy to announce the return of our first flavor, the sweet tart, candy apple red jelly that rocks for flavor and color like no other: crabapple.

In a year of extraordinary apple crops, the crabapples too are producing more than we can harvest. Will be all the more for the deer and other critters in a winter forecast to be pretty tough in the Northeast.

But for the moment it is October, just one light frost to date. The trees hang heavy with fruit, the foliage is glowing and les collines await only magical, fragrant quince for the autumnal lineup to be complete.

Coming soon all four: cider sage, quince, crabapple, Concord grape– gold to pumpkin to red to deep purple, reflecting the colors of the season xo

 

We’re in the last month of summer, that sweet spot when the light has shifted but the heat of summer is still on. Flame bushes tinting red, the occasional leaf change, and some pre-dawn runs that need long sleeves….

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Red fruits as a term doesn’t exist in English, sadly, as it usefully groups together some if not most of my favorites. The berries and currant family are all there, cranberries too. Back in the distant day when I was buying preserves (yes, shocking!!) my preferred Bonne Maman flavor was 4 (as in, quatre…) Fruits, perfect for pb&j on up: cherry, strawberry, red currant, and raspberry.

The red fruits of les collines exist in their own separate jars– perhaps one day we’ll mix them, but for now they stand alone in all their glory. Stripes of a season’s rainbow, colors and flavors of summer suspended in time xo

…like this

Bottoms up, sour cherry preserve-black raspberry preserve-gooseberry jelly.

We have been wildly wild, busybusybusy as all three fruit are happening at once this year, where there is usually a bit of staggering. Cannot pick and cook fast enough.

The flavor of black raspberries is matched only by their staining capacity!

The sour cherry crop seems to be having a pretty banner year, making up for last.

But those gooseberry thorns!!! Seeming extra extra sharp, ai yi yi and I have the scars to prove it!! Of course, the tart beauty of the jelly is more than worth it…For a little Christmas in July, and because really, who needs sleep?– we pulled a batch of Sevilles from the freezer one very humid day to get a batch of marmalade going and they were fabulously frosty. And unbelievably fragrant even though frozen solid. Incredible.  Lazy days of summer, uh uh.

Last week, a few days before July 4 les collines received a vote of confidence and a hand up from the good folk at the CEDC and the HVADC of Columbia County. We are so grateful. The timing was pretty perfect.

And as a result…we are in business!! Making our sweet version of slow food on this little hill in this beautiful corner of the County. Inspired by everything, everything around us.

On the agenda this week, pitting sour cherries, picking black raspberries,  gooseberries. Pulling Sevilles from the freezer for a Christmas in July marmalade, simmering New Zealand Meyers and fresh-from-the-garden rosemary, post downpours, for a summertime Meyer lemon rosemary jelly. 

Summer harvests and les collines, to savor, with gratitude xo

Strawberries hung in there despite the copious rains of June…hard to believe back end of May it was approaching a dust bowl round here. The berry season thus far seems all too much like last year, where they started so very fine and then the rains came and with them, dank mold. Hard pickings. But got us a good crop; the strawberry preserve with Lapsang Suochong will tell you all you need to know.

Sour cherries are just in this week, and they are looking pretty damn good. Already picked and cooked and the first batches of preserve are out. Going for more fruit tomorrow.

July’s full moon is the buck, and it was a beauty when it made it over the cloud bank last evening. Waiting for it to do the same tonight. Too cloudy to catch the Venus-Jupiter pairing. Next time…xo

 

First full day of summer 2015, a beauty….

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The full moon of June is known as the Strawberry Moon in Algonquin lore; European cultures variously name it the Rose, or the Heat, Moon. …

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