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Sara Cammeresi

I've recently become reenamoured with English muffins as a component of my breakfast, and I've been exploring some of the fruit and fruit byproduct alternatives for topping them.

My current favourite is St Dalfour's black cherry preserves, with Dickenson's bing cherry preserves following in a close second. St Dalfour's products have, as a drawback, the attribute of having been made in France, but to give credit where credit is due, the French do know how to make preserves even if they are foreign policy nincompoops. The preserves are both slightly sweet and tart, they have just enough spreadability to coat a muffin with a reasonable sized dollop, and they sport a magnificient dark ruby colour. I've also tried Dickenson's blueberry preserves, but found them starkly lacking in the flavour department.

If you live in CU, Schnucks stock both of these brands and many others. The Walnut Street Tea Company also sells some preserves, but I don't recall which kinds, unfortunately.

By the way, just in case you're not quite sure what the difference is between jelly, jam, preserves, and marmalade:

jelly

made from fruit juice, fully spreadable, firm enough to hold its shape

jam

made from fruit boiled into a crushed pulp, contains fruit bits

preserves

made from and contains whole or large pieces of fruit, slightly spreadable

marmalade

jelly (often citrus) with bits of citrus fruit peel

One drawback to the more fruited varieties when the fruit in question is of a berry form is that they often contain seeds. I hate eating raspberries because the seeds always, always, always get stuck in my teeth. Very non-objective.

I of course recommend employing one's toaster in this process, but ensure that you don't toast your muffins so long that they become brittle. And as for a chaser, some Assam or Earl Grey or Lady Grey tea should do the trick nicely.

Update [31 Aug 2003]: Preserves and conserves are synonomous.

posted by Sid at 11.43 / 738     [ Comments: 4 ]

Is anyone else offended by M. Chirac's statement that France are rejoicing over the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime? Good thing it collapsed instead of being brought to active destruction. Meanwhile in the UK, a spokesman for Number 10 said that `People have seen today the scales of fear falling from the people of Iraq.'

posted by Sid at 09.24 / 642     [ Comments: 1 ]

British Airways and Air France are retiring the Concorde in light of the fact that the aircrafts' operations have failed to return to profitability in the shadow of the crash in Paris in 2000. Air France have stated that they will totally and completely cease their Concordes' operations from 1 November.

[Cue images from Atlas Shrugged of the opening of the John Galt line, etc.]

Well okay, that's too bad, but then we scroll down the page just a little bit, and we see some prices:

• London to New York one-way ticket on Concorde and a subsonic return in economy class for £1,999.
• One-way on Concorde and a subsonic return in first class for £3,499.
• One Concorde return flight for £3,999.

[For the uninitiated, `return' is British for `round trip' in American, and as I write, £3,999 is $6,289.72.]

But before you think about how high those prices are, note that those are the prices for their specials which are to run from this week until the end of August! It's no wonder no one wants to fly on those planes, sheesh.

posted by Sid at 09.33 / 648     [ Comments: 0 ]