Catch-up

The diversity of this supposedly "Building Blog" is starting to be quite annoying. I hope this does not put you off. Travelogue shall now also be......erm...Life in a regional city perhaps? And why not?

Today will be about catch-up. Or more precisely, ketchup. This was an annual even carried out by most people who loved homemade sauces during the autumn. Living in a country with 4 seasons certainly has its perks. Back home in Malaysia, no one bothers to make marmalade, relishes, sauces, unless of course, you are in the culinary business. And why bother since supermarkets (everywhere) magically proffers an endless array of bottled delights be it tomato sauce or marinated anchovies in olives.

Before

Its actually a novelty for us because we have never made sauce before. What does not make sense to us is perfectly sensible to the locals. I will not presume to understand sauce-making for all its worth, but perhaps it is a little about the changing of seasons, the preserving of the harvest, the storing of fresh produce in a bottle, the communal work of cooking & stirring and maybe it's also about giving.

After

Plenty of sauces, plenty of recipes. Ours here this year includes granny-smith apples, brown onions, celery, red apples, soup tomatoes, red chillies, pepper, cumin seeds, grounded cloves, brown sugar, malt vinegar, apple puree, cornstarch, potato thickener, crushed garlic powder, coriander powder, salt and water. I think.

sun-dried recycled bottles

After half a day's work of cutting & gathering materials, you will only need to continuously stir and boil the conconction for another half a day. The rest of the time, you just need to clean out, dry and bake empty recycled bottles. Yes you have to bake the glass bottles because they will crack under pressure when hot sauce is poured straight into it.

alcoholics anonymous

I like the photos. Of repeatitive items. It is quite therapeutic. And very logical.

caps

All in a day's work. Sauce has to be cooled overnight to settle into room temperature prior to capping off. A lot of work for a lot of sauce. Which was...totally worth the trouble. Why? Because the sauce taste almost like a relish!

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