One of the many advantages of living for most of your life in fairly remote places is that you rarely have to dress up. In my case that’s a great advantage, as I really don’t do dressy. With my legs I’m happiest in jeans, and with my feet high heels are out of the question. All this means that I don’t have much use for jewellery, other than my rings, of course.
This is fine by me, but a little while ago it posed a problem for my dear mother-in-law. She is a generous person, who enjoys giving presents, and at a local craft fair she spotted some pretty crystal pendants which she knew would be much appreciated by her other two daughters-in-law. Sadly for her, pretty pendants, whether crystal or not, don’t go very well with jeans and sneakers, so she sensibly didn’t buy one for me. Instead she gave me the money and asked me to get myself a little treat.
Usually, as she well knows, a treat for me takes the form of yet another book or CD, but this time I knew just what I wanted. Not something to wear or read or listen to, but something to use, something which would make one of my interests easier and more successful.
Instead of a pendant, however pretty, I wanted a proper preserving-pan – a beautiful, heavy-bottomed, stainless-steel maslin pan - for the jams and preserves I've always loved making. For years I’d made do with either a pressure-cooker (too narrow) or my old, cheap, aluminium preserving-pan (too flimsy) which had been all I could afford at the time.
But now, at last, I had the real thing and I was thrilled. No more boiling-over because the pan was too small. No more burnt-on jam because the base was too thin. There was no stopping me and I went mad – filling the store cupboard with more jams and jellies than the two of us could hope to eat in years – so many that I had to start giving them away, to stop us both expanding to the approximate size and shape of barrage balloons.
Thankfully we’re all different and my idea of a treat probably isn’t yours. Nevertheless my little treat gives and will go on giving me enormous pleasure and satisfaction. OK, I can’t wear it, and other people will probably never see it, but every time I take my pan out of the cupboard and set to work, and the kitchen fills with the tantalising aroma of freshly-made jam, I think of my dear mother-in-law and realise yet again what a very lucky woman I am.
You’ll have to excuse me now – I have some marmalade to make. It’s a bit of a treat.
What a splendid pan - an excellent investment in my opinion! Happy marmalade making.
ReplyDeleteOh it is, curate's wife! I only wish I'd had it when the children were young and got through the most amazing amount of jam.
ReplyDeleteI've had mine for years...and it makes jam making a real pleasure...I'm frightened of pressure cookers at the best of times, so when I was given this pan as a present I was really delighted.
ReplyDeleteIt travelled over here with us in the carry on bag to avoid the risk of it being 'mislaid' in transit and it duly drove every security gate potty.
We seem to have 'jam' moments when it disappears at a rate of knots followed by 'no jam' moments when the shelves are full...but it equals out over the year.
Sensible mother in law!
Wow - I love it! Really envious - I will be looking out for one. Axxx
ReplyDeleteA truly special treat, indeed! And you'll enjoy it for years!
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful pan.
ReplyDeleteYears ago, when we couldn't afford it at all, I bought myself a huge saucepan from a kitchen supply shop which has pleased me every time I have used it since. The right tool for the job is a real pleasure.
Fly, yes, my mother-in-law is very sensible and a real darling with it.
ReplyDeleteI love the thought of your going through airport security with a jam pan in your hand luggage :-) Shows what's really important in life! Mind you, I'd do the same nowadays. A woman and her jam pan should never be parted.....
Annie, no need to look far. I got mine from Amazon and it's by Kitchen Craft. I was so impressed with it that when asked I even did a review for it on Amazon. It's the one with 74 customer reviews :-)
ReplyDeleteKathy, indeed it is special and I'll be making jam until I'm too old to hold the spoon.
Rosie, you had the right idea! My big pan was always the pressure cooker, with or without its weights, but it just doesn't work for jam-making. Why should men be the only ones with the right tool for every job?
In your shoes I would probably have blown the money on a pretty pendant (to wear with jeans)! But how immensely satisfying, and far more sensible, to get something practical that you've wanted for ages.
ReplyDeleteOur ancient preserving pan came with the house, as it were, and is pitted with decades of acidic fruit bubbling away in it. I'm sure I ought to get a new one really, but it seems to do the job (thinks suddenly, help, is it aluminium? No, I think it's too heavy). There is a deep, atavistic pleasure in having a store cupboard full of home-made jams and preserves, isn't there.
ooohh jealous! I always have to borrow a friends pan! My treats are often dull in other peoples eyes too, but if its a treat to you thats what counts :)
ReplyDeleteredx
Dancing Beastie, it's a good thing for the jewellery industry that not everyone thinks like me :-) I love the idea of a preserving pan coming with a house and rather hope mine turns into an heirloom too.
ReplyDeleteRed, a treat is what YOU want it to be and blow what other people think. My mother's idea of treating herself was always to buy a new kitchen or gardening tool, so the tendency must be inherited...
That's the kind of choice I would make if I could tear myself away from books. I once asked my MiL for Sabatier knives for Christmas and she was horrified! These days I have to make do with what utensils I can get in Turkey as all the copper bottomed pans and good knives and my beloved range cooker are back in Wales. But we get by with what we can get here and the odd imported goody - my latest love is a Hobart food mixer than a friend has given me as he had no room for it on his worktops having shipped it from the uk.
ReplyDeleteKaren
PS Hurray I can comment!
Welcome, Karen - great that you can comment at last. Does that mean Turkey has finally lifted the Blogger ban?
ReplyDeleteYes, it's a hard one having to choose between books and anything else, especially, I imagine, if you have no access to an English-language library. I'm so lucky in my mother-in-law, who will happily give me anything from a pan to a knitting-bag, if that's what I really want. She would much rather see me using the most mundane item with pleasure, than know that the gift she has givn me isn't being used or worn.
The Daughter has inherited her paternal grandparents' jam pan, in which they made kilos of seville orange marmalade every year (and had said marmalade on the breakfast room table every day of their life together). Her father had it for a while, and has carried on with the marmalade tradition, but he invested in a new one and so the heirloom has reached her. So far she has made chutney in it, which she dressed and labelled prettily and gave out as Xmas gifts.
ReplyDeleteJam frightens me. It's like biscuits. Can't have it or them in the house or I will just EAT until the jar or packet is half or wholly empty.
So I'd stick with necklaces, if asked. I have so many of those they hang from the knobs of all our fitted wardrobes and cupboards in the bedroom!
Lucky girl! If it's a good solid one it will last her a lifetime. How nice to have something that's come down through the family. I firmly expect DD to lay claim to mine in due course.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about biscuits, though I've more self-control with jam. You'll juat have to sample mine whenever you visit :-)
I don't have the neck for pendants and necklaces nowadays, but love the the idea of a bedroom decorated with them....
I have jam-pan envy!!
ReplyDeleteYep, rather covetable, isn't it Jane :-)) I can so see why Fly kept hers in her carry-on luggage.
ReplyDeleteI know it sounds weird, taking it in the carry on bag, but with the history we have had of things disappearing from suitcases in transit there was no way I was risking losing it.
ReplyDeleteNot weird at all, Fly! I'd do the same myself if I thought I risked losing mine. I waited a long time to have it, after all.
ReplyDeleteI fear a pan would do nothing for me but your Oxford post rang true for me. I didn't go there myself but my daughter did, and was happy there (and met her husband). I visited her quite a lot and have very happy memories of this. She went to Wadham.
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting, Isabelle and sorry for the delay in replying. I've been in transit!
ReplyDeleteI knew Wadham quite well, as back in those single-sex college days, Wadham and LMH had a joint choir which I joined in my first term and sang with for my whole time there. Carols by candlelight in Wadham chapel was magical.
Our jam and chutney making have been transformed by the advent of the maslin pan. In the words of your grandson, it is indeed "awesome"!!
ReplyDeleteWelcome, Jill and thanks for visiting. Yes, Grandson #1's favourite word really does apply in this case. It makes the whole process such a pleasure and the results are always so good. I wouldn't have believed a pan could make such a difference :-)
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