Autumnal Mood

Look at these crazy medlars… Every year I pick them off the tree, a favourite specimen tree regardless of the fruit. The idea is to wait until they are brown and on the verge of being thrown out (in the compost of course) practically rotten, and then and only then do you remove the inside.

DH Lawrence once said medlars were “wineskins of brown morbidity”……In ‘The Cook and the Gardener’ Amanda Hesser suggests it’s important to preserve the old ways. In her words “it’s a way to preserve an old recipe” a wise and good thing I think.

Last night after some French champagne, a fine meal and a glass of Reynella’s Cabernet Sauvignon I look in the bowl of rotting fruit finally game to eat one. They don’t look so appetising now, this photo was a month ago, but the French like to make jam out of them so why not.

Indeed there is a sweetness and a gravelly texture but yes four small stones appear like pips. Just imagine what I will have to go through to make jam and I am thinking perhaps the medlar and the compost will again be at one. Time will tell, two months later they are still in the bowl…

Recently a person in central Italy shared that she has one in her olive grove and that it dates back to the Renaissance. I love that, it makes me want to go on a little research trip about this tree. I was lucky to find one in my orchard when we moved here ten years ago. Interestly it is right next to our olive, the one I planted for my daughter Olivia’s birth. Its leaves turn every autumnal shade into a deep red at the end of the season, a wise and beautiful tree indeed.

There is always a beauty to the light at this time of the year, if you can get past the colder days it is wonderful. There are a thousand jobs out in the garden, cutting back the perennials, cleaning up the leaves. The Manchurian Pears are so big now that their leaves are falling for months…

One of my walking paths not far from home up on the hill on a gorgeous winters day

Beautiful Bookshelf that inspires me, I have a few, but here is Amanda Hesser’s:

The Cook and The Gardener: A Year of Recipes and Writings from the French Countryside I mentioned above…