Plums by the ton

a good day's work with the vaccola, originally uploaded by Ampersand Duck.

Canberra is in the grip of a plum plague. If our tree is anything to go by, there must be people all over the Territory of the Free asking their neighbours and workmates if they'd like some plums, to a consistent response of agonised groaning. Ask crazybrave. Apparently soon after we brought over a big bag of our plums (in return for a box of jars), her aunt brought over about a ton more. Normally the fabulous Zoe would respond with her inimitable foodie flair and cook up a plummy storm, but I fear the lack of day sleeps for Sage may have stonkered that this year.

But! Best Beloved has got the bug this year, and has had a wonderful time discovering his inner Nigella (or, more accurately, his inner Stephanie, since she wrote most of the recipes he's used. But he's sexy enough to be Nigella, at least to me, which is what counts, n'est pas? Since I married him. Fuck, what an aside. Apologies). He has made plum jam, plum sauce, plum 'topping', which is an optimistically-viewed runny plum jam, and masses of plum preserves (see picture) and today another batch of plum jam (jury's out on whether it will actually be jam or topping). Even with all that productive plum using and giving away, the tree looks like it hasn't been touched. Traditionally my neighbours descend, but this year they're staying away. Why? Is it the painted car? Are we now officially the neighbourhood weirdos?

Anyway, we walked past a deli in Belconnen Mall today and saw three big boxes of plums just like ours marked 'organic plums, no spray, $2 a kg'. What a laugh.

Oh -- we were at Belco because we went to see 'Ray', the biopic on Ray Charles. Highly recommended, if only for the awesome digital cleanup of his early recordings. I was in heaven.