I’ve been canning a lot lately, which is nothing new to me. Because I’ve been blogging for so many years, many times when cooking, I think I will post a recipe, only to find that I’ve already written about it. And when it comes to canning, I do follow my tried and true formulas, year after year. At the colorful Zhenski Pazar in downtown Sofia, I found beautiful fresh little brown Turkish figs (local, from near the Greek border), just like the ones we have back home. When I arrived here last year, I came with a dozen or more jars. I’ve given them all away. I decided I better buy some figs, not knowing if they were available in China, where we will be moving prior to fig season next summer. I canned them per the recipe in Hoppin’ John’s Lowcountry Cooking. The recipe appeared on the blog five years ago, in August 2007.

My friend Dilyana brought us organic, heirloom tomatoes and peppers from her mother’s garden in the country. We’ve been eating the tomatoes any way we can, mostly just sliced with salt, pepper, my favorite, delicate Ligurian olive oil, and, on some of the sweeter varieties, a squeeze of lemon juice. The big red sweet peppers I put up in a relish, the recipe for which I posted on March 24, 2008 (You will have to scroll down to that date.)  We don’t eat much meat here — an occasional кюфте (a “meatball” more like a burger, with ground pork and/or beef or veal, and, in the good ones, some herbs, onions, and spices), and lamb when I can find it. But with several jars of this sweet pepper relish at hand now, I’m ready to make or buy some sausages to garnish with this delicious condiment!

I also put up the hot peppers in vinegar to have with greens. That recipe also appeared on the blog five years ago, on November 2, 2007 (you’ll have to scroll down again, but there are some of my favorite dishes on this blog). All of these classic condiment recipes are in my Lowcountry book. Order a copy from HoppinJohns.com  and I’ll sign it and ship it to you.

Just when I was becoming confident with my culinary vocabulary here in Bulgaria, I must now learn yet another language! I went to a local Chinese store and bought some culinary flash cards and several dictionaries. Lo! and Behold! There’s a flash card with figs on it! But when I turned it over, it said “blueberry”! I looked up both “fig” and “blueberry” in the three dictionaries, but neither was listed. In the Visual Dictionary we bought, however, the blueberry photo is captioned lánméiand the (dried) fig is called wúhuāguŏ — which is the word on the flash card with the picture of the figs! Woo-hoo!!! One word learned!!!

 

One thing’s for sure: it’s going to be an interesting year! In October I will be in the States, touring with the 20th Anniversary Edition of my lowcountry cookbook. In November, we are going to a bush camp in South Africa. In February, I return to Charleston for the Wine & Food Festival. In April, I’m going to Sichuan to find housing. And next summer, we move.

I’m going to post my tour schedule as one of the categories on the blog. Please come see me on tour!