I was chuffed and surprised and very pleased when a follower of this blog, who had followed earlier blogs such as www.walkingthederwent.com for years, made contact and offered me some of his crop of quinces. We had never met, and ‘knew’ each other only through our comments on each other’s blogs. Despite my loathing of the hard nature of quinces, I accepted the offer for two reasons. Firstly, I live in a world where waste should not be tolerated and all efforts should be made to protect our own food security – so turning these quinces into edible food such as jams, jellies or pastes was clearly the smart thing to do. And of course I would enjoy the eating. Secondly, I was curious and excited to meet this long term blog follower.
It is one thing to be responsive with my blog following, personal, well-known friends but very much an unexpected pleasure to meet new people. This has only happened once before during my years of blogging. Back in 2015 a wonderful woman from New York state made contact, told me she was coming to Tasmania and hoped we could walk a little together. You can read my blog post of that wonderful inspiring encounter here and see Denise’s blogsite here. She reported on our little walk here.
Struggling with cabin fever I felt I had to get out of the house and headed down the hill to the supermarket for a few bits of food. Murphy’s Law has it that quince giver Andrew would arrive while I was out. And so it came to be … but … as I turned the corner walking home, from a distance I spotted a stranger near my front door. I doubled my pace. As he walked into the street from my driveway I yelled with a quizzical tone ‘Andrew?’. He nodded. I smiled. All I could think of was how marvellous finally to be able to meet one of my long term blog followers – albeit standing at an isolating distance apart. We agreed that post-virus we should catch up again.
‘There’s a bag of quinces on the bench’, and he nodded towards my front door entrance. ‘Thanks’. I was much affected.
My quince giver Andrew regularly publishes on his always interesting blogsite; his posts can be read and followed here (https://novisiblemeans.com).
In the next post you can read how I used his large bag of quinces. Thanks Andrew.
Tasmanian Discoveries 
I was lucky that I also got a bag of quinces from a friend. In the past I used to make paste and jam but because I want to cut down on sugar I decided this year to boil them in a little water and then purée them and freeze them in small portions which I use for yummy smoothies and desserts.
LikeLike
I never stew fruits in water. Rather I put them into the pan and turn the stove top on a rating of about 3/10. I stir the contents about every 10 minutes then, after half an hour, the fruit slumps and there is a an inch or two of liquid at the bottom. That is when I raise the temperature to bring to a boil, then drop to a simmer for as along as it takes to soften the fruits. I dont bother pureeing, just dividing up into one meal size portion, adding to small containers then freezing. So our processes are similar I simply dont dilute with water and I seldom add sugar – although I did with the quinces.
LikeLike
What a fun gift! Enjoy them. Thanks for sharing our memories. I hope you are well. Sending hugs from NY!
LikeLike
Good to hear from you. Writing these blog posts everyday while the virus keeps us at home is a ‘job’ but also a pleasure. More or less each day its a new topic currently mostly on the theme of food and garden – so this makes me happy and seems to make a lot of others happy as well. But occasionally as with this post, it crosses over into a life lived seemingly years ago. In this case, with you. Cheers, Helen
LikeLike
It was great to finally meet you! Hope you enjoy the quinces. Even if I don’t end up using them all myself, I love having them in the house – the scent is intoxicating.
LikeLike
That scent was not something I knew about or expected. I have only ever had about three or four before and used them straight away. Marvellous and very grateful
LikeLiked by 1 person