News from Karin's Kitchen

This has been many years in the making. As some of you know, I love quince jelly. For years I have been trying to find the jelly, or, since that was not successful, I tried to find quince to make it myself. It is something that seems to be only available on the East coast ( I have seen Martha use it on TV), which is surprising, because it is usually grown where they grow apples and we live in Washington after all (for all you, who don't know, Washington is the largest producer of apples in the US). Well, obviously not for quince. I guess there is just no market. So, about 4 years ago I decided to grow my own and planted a quince tree. Last year I had my first crop with 4 pieces of fruit. This year I had 10 pounds - I am not daring to think how much we will have next year. I think we will be covered for the future!

A few weeks ago I spent a Saturday making various quince products. I cooked the fruit to get the juice for jelly. I used the pulp to make fruit leather. And I found a recipe for quince cake. That was very delicious. I will explore the cake side more next year. And then, off course, we enjoyed coffee from my new espresso machine. I can not even begin to tell you, how great it is to get good espresso in your own house.

Let me know, if anyone is interested in jelly or fruit leather. I have a lot!

Amelia on the Pumpkin Farm

Last Thursday we went with Ameila's preschool to a pumpkin farm. We were 30 children ad their parents. The farm was called "South 47" and is between Redmond and Woodinville. It is an organic farm that grows all kind of vegetable and flowers and sells at a farm stand. Off course they grow pumpkins as well for self picking. They have a corn maze and hay rides. For schools they do tours where they explain to the children how plants grow. They did this with songs and sign language. We learned about bees and pollination. We got to pretend to be bees and pollinate big paper flowers with corn meal. After that we got to dig in a worm bin for worms. I learnt that worms have 5 hearts and that in a good environment they can live between 5 and 10 years. And we learnt that mole mounds are actually worm traps, yet another thing I did not know.

The tour ended with each of the kids picking a pumpkin. The reason, they are so small is, that they are sugar pumpkins. Amelia fell in love with the first one she saw and I could not even get her to look at any others. It was great fun and I was able to buy some great vegetables. I love multicolored carrots. The kids love to eat them.

The beginning of the school year

School has now begun for both of the girls. Marlene loves being in first grade. Her reading and writing are improving every day. And she loves to draw pictures. We have finally managed to put a desk in her room. She is very excited to have her own space now for her homework. In German school, she is doing a lot of writing, too. At the beginning of the year their teacher, Frau Barnes, gave them each a 1st grade journal from Germany. It reminds me, how I learned to write.

Amelia started preschool and she is absolutely loving it. She is one of only two girls and 10 boys. She has a commanding presence in the classroom and the boys know not to mess with her. They have various cars and a slide in the room. It is a large space, so the children have a lot of room to run around. Her favorite is the pink car and whenever we get there she first needs to claim the car. Amelia goes to preschool on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. It is always a drama on the other days, when she does not get to go. Unfortunately it is only 2 hours from 11-1pm. It is a lot of driving for me and I do not have much time in between to get stuff done.

Last week we had a graduation party for our Totwatch group. All the kids are now in school or preschool, which means an end to our Monday meetings. It makes me kind of sad, because over the last 5 years I have grown fond of all these kids and parents. We got together at the Seawalls' house for a BBQ. These are all the kids, which were together until the end.

Fundraising season is starting and Marlene had her annual walk-a-thon at her school. Last years she did 14 rounds; This years she walked for 90 minutes straight and managed to get to 28 rounds. Our daily walks to school are definitely paying off, at least for the school.