My tracklements are simmering

The kitchen has been filled with the rather pungent smell of vinegar these last few days. My sister-in-law gave me a lot of green tomatoes and so chutney has been made. For regular readers...yes...I have a functioning kitchen. We are not quite there yet but I have a stove, a sink and storage space. What more could a cook want.

At this time of year I do feel the need to make provisions. Or tracklements! I think that's rather a fab name for chutneys and condiments. "Ooh let me get me tracklements a-simmering." My manufacture of jams and chutneys is the equivalent of my husband's need to get the wood cut and the logs stored before the winter sets in. The leaves are falling so it's time to boil sugar and fruit and let the jammy alchemy begin.

I don't bother making a Christmas pudding and popping that into fermenting storage but I do need to make some blackberry gin and some pickled onions and piccalilli. As a child my mum's best friend's mother used to make superb pickled onions and the most fabulous piccalilli. I can taste them now - oh the joy. We always used to wait with bated breath to see whether Auntie Margaret had wrapped us up a jar of both for Christmas Day. I think it depended on whether her mum had any jars left over once immediate family had been served. Then Boxing Day consisted of eating the onions and the  yellowy mustard chutney with a little bit of turkey on the side. That is December 26th for me. It is my life's work to try to emulate the wondrosity of those tracklements and I haven't achieved it yet.

As for the blackberry gin, well I couldn't possibly be expected to cook Christmas dinner without a tipple on the side. A little bit of blackberry liqueur in the bottom of a champagne flute, topped with sparkling wine and it doesn't then matter if the Brussels sprouts are soggy and the turkey crisp. I'm merry.