Bog Roll ::

After a great deal of effort we have finally finished off the jamming for this year. I'm not sure what the best conserve of the year has been, but I know the best of each category.

Best Jelly

For the second year running, Red Current Jelly wins as a clear sharp jelly, with excellent flavour, good yield and easy preparation.

Best Jam

Damson Jam a clear winner. Excellent flavour and texture, and a good yield. Labour intensive to make but well worth the effort.

Best Marmalade

Rhubarb and Orange Marmalade from this spring. It's the only marmalade I made this year but it was very good and I do plan to make it again.

Others

The apple and damson jam is quite nice. It spreads well and is worth making again. It's much easier to make than the whole damson jam, but the flavour is no way near as intense.

The apple and caramel we made was interesting to do and looks impressive. I don't think I like the flavour though, so I don't plan to make it again, especially as it was a lot of effort to make.

Rhubarb and Ginger Jam is very nice, and by far the most popular - everyone wants that one. As we will probably get lots of rhubarb again next year I will make this one again as well as the rhubarb/orange marmalade.

posted 20:50 :: /stuff/food/jam :: permalink :: ^

Last year we bought a case of Apple Juice from a local producer. Even with careful rationing it has eventually run out, and we had to go and buy some more. Last weekend we went up to the local farmer's market and got some more. Alas they didn't have all the varieties in stock, so we'll have to go again in December...

This year I plan to balance it with some very nice Breton Cider we brought back from our summer holidays.

posted 20:32 :: /stuff/food :: permalink :: ^

Over on polishlinux.org there is a provocatively titled article " Ten Reasons To Dump Windows". It's fair to say that a lot of the points are opinion and you could easily argue them in favour of Windows instead of in favour of Linux. However the first point "Default Security Setting" is a real stinger:

• Windows is insecure by default and it does take time and money to make it secure. It's also expensive and time consuming to keep it secure.
• Linux is a lot more secure out of the box, and a lot easier and cheaper to keep secure.

Security doesn't come for free and it takes a skilled administrator to keep any system secure. It is just that it takes a lot more effort to keep a Windows system secure.

posted 18:58 :: /unix :: permalink :: ^