Domesticity

I am not an overly domestic orientated person. Sure when I was a kid I went through a Little House on the Prairie phase but my housekeeping skills leave much to be desired. Lately however, perhaps due to sheer boredom I have found myself willingly performing several domestic activities.

One being knitting- I am making a hat, I have actually been working on a hat for my younger sister for quite some time but can't seem to get it right. It has been described as a broccoli, a unripe pumpkin, a fungus and a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion. Perhaps I should have followed a pattern instead of trying to make one up as a went along. That technique might work for scarves but hats are a bit more complicated.

The other domestic activity I have been up to is making applesauce. I remember once as a kid making applesauce from the wild apple trees that grow in the valley on my parents farm. The apples aren't perfect like the ones you may get in a store or from an orchard, they are bumped and bruised and covered in scars from insect attacks, but they are still good enough for applesauce.  I took a few pics of the process, must say the results were quite delicious!

Apples I found in the valley

Cooking the apples, leaving the peels on makes the applesauce pink

Pushing the cooked apples through the sieve to make apple sauce!

End result, YUMMY

I like to leave the peels on when I make applesauce, I think it improves the flavour, it also makes the applesauce pinkish. Since the apples in our valley aren't very sweet I had to add some sugar, and then I put the applesauce in some containers and stored them in the freezer. The process was kinda labour intensive, but also kinda fun.

The other day I was thinking about how I don't mind baking, and making pastry and such. I briefly considered switching careers to become a pastry chef. Briefly being the key phrase. Although I think I could do it and excel, it really isn't my passion. I think the idea came because I am craving a delicacy from my favourite bakery (Culbert's cream puffs!!!) that is closed right now due to damage from the tornadoes that recently hit Goderich Ontario. My brother is friends with the owner and apparently the historic ovens in their bakery may have been damaged and it will likely take longer to repair than originally anticipated. They are also concerned that the new ovens might affect the quality of their pastry. Tragedy of epic proportions if you ask me!!! My longing for this delicious treat, and its subsequent unavailability may have led me to want to be able to create such delicacies for myself but I don't think I would be fully satisfied with this as a career. So instead I will channel any urges to bake towards my friends and family- aren't they lucky.

However my domestic skills really haven't increased that much so I might need someone to take care of the resulting stack of dishes.....