Here in the Northern Hemisphere, August is the month of preparing jams and preserves. So could there have been a more appropriate topic than sweet preserves or jams when I signed up to host this month’s edition of Sugar High Friday? Not ever.
IMBB may be the father of all food blog events, but SHF, in analogy, would be the mother of all – obviously equipped with a sweet tooth! Originally brought to life by Jennifer, the Domestic Goddess herself, back in October 2004 with the topic white chocolate. Meanwhile the whole food blogging community has indulged in 21 different sweet events, featuring basic ingredients like honey and puff pastry or themes like spices, custard and aphrodisiacal desserts. No matter which, they all were a huge success!
This month’s edition is taking place on Friday August 25th and is a good opportunity to preserve the taste of summer: It’s totally up to you, take your favorite fruits, preserve them, refine them, work with them, your creativity is the limit. Stick with your grandma’s proven strawberry jam recipe or experiment with an exotic fruit and spice mix, add liqueur, nuts or herbs. You live on the southern half of this planet? You’ve got no excuse, there are plenty of seasonal fruits available for marmalade and similar! You have never preserved anything sweet in your whole life? Well, this is the right time! Of course you can always venture out and buy your favorite June Taylor or Christine Ferber jam – given you live in the right places. But once you’ve enjoyed and fallen in love with your very own product, there is no way back. You are commander in chief concerning the amount of sugar, the quality of fruits and the size of the fruit pieces (which is key to picky people like me…). JUST GIVE IT A TRY!
That’s it? No, not quite. There are two more things I ask of you, both are absolutely voluntary! Firstly, in case you’re cookbook aficionado like myself, I’d be keen to hear about your preferred Canning And Preserving Cookbook. Secondly, if you’re up for more creative fun, design your own packaging to go with your preserves. This includes handwritten or computer-designed labels, bright colored ribbons, anything that would make a nice homemade food gift an even nicer one.
Here’s the roadmap:
Can. Bottle. Preserve. Go overboard with everything sweet!
Write about it, share your recipe and take pictures (if possible). If your schedule permits, you may (optionally) recommend your favorite Canning And Preserving Cookbook to your readers and design a nice custom packaging (labels etc.) for your jars.
Tell us about your entry! There will be a very simple and convenient entry form (requiring your name, location, URL of your SHF post, title of your creation) available via the Sugar-High-Friday-Button in our sidebar to accept your submissions as of August 24th CET (one day before SHF). Submission deadline is August 27th CET (two days after SHF). All participating blogs and entries can be found at round-up on Monday 28th…
“Anybody seen the rose petals?”, “Mace, where again?”, “Didn’t you just take the saffron?”, “Can you pass me the ground lime please?” and so on. Almost two dozen people, a lot of quick hands, a giant jumble, everyone looking out for their spices…
Another hot night, it seemed like we weren’t getting a break any time soon. At this point I think everyone was and is kneeling for a little change in weather – phew. A few weeks back Sebastian asked us if we wanted to join him and small group of food writers from the Food Editors Club Germany, PR agents and foodies in general for a spicy event.
Cool! Sarah from The Delicious Life announced round #21 of my favorite food blog event just a few weeks back – and before you know it, it’s Sugar High Friday again! Originally invented by Jennifer, the Domestic Goddess herself, it’s always a more than welcome excuse occasion to indulge your sweet tooth.
This round’s theme couldn’t have been chosen more appropriately considering the current temperatures, one-hit-wonder Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby from 1990 gains new fame these days.
Although I’m always delighted by spontaneous dinners with friends, sometimes spontaneity alone doesn’t quite cut it. Arranging a little cooking get-together with a handful of people with -by Murphys’ law- very contrasting work schedules, requires a few weeks lead time. For this hot event, all up-front planning was well worth it!
In hindsight, we had so much fun cooking together at all our past events, that everyone had been looking forward to this one themed PASTA with a tagline of Italian food in general.
