Alcohol, Pears and JUST DO IT!

A friend, who shall remain nameless because I don't want them to get into potential trouble with Customs and Excise, returned from their abode en France last week avec an enormous sac de pears from their jardine. And it is an ENORMOUS sack. Beaucoup de pears. I reckon I could get inside it and hide quite easily if a) I felt so inclined and b) it wasn't full already with pears.

The idea the friend had, knowing Andy's penchant for the home brew, was that Andy could turn them into gallons of pear cider and they could have many a roister-doister manly evening drinking cider and playing skittles and comparing tattoes and possibly smoking pipes. Well, this was a fine idea 'cept Andy does not have a cider press, or fruit crusher and having just researched them on the interwebbly as a potential Christmas pressie, he isn't likely to own them in the near future either as they are blooming expensive and bulky items, and that's without all the additional malarkey you need to go with them.

Phoebe has tried to crush the pears herself by sleeping on the sack, but they are doing what pears do, which is remain resolutely rock hard until the nano-second before they turn to mush.

Andy has occasional mentioned building his own press, which is the kind of loose talk I think initiated the pear smuggling in the first place. But needless to say, the pears are going to disintegrate long before any DIY press building occurs, so the race is now on to do something with the pears other than cider them.

Last weekend, Andy spent a vast quantity of time doing some brewing. He completed step 87 of his summer fruits wine project, shook the demi-john of sloe gin which won't be ready for bottling for another two months, and not ready to drink until this time next year at least, and then he set about making pear wine.

But despite his best pear-wine making ministrations, the sack of pears remains obstinately full. So I hoiked out the recipe books and found a recipe for apple, pear and ginger mincemeat.

Andy and Heather immediately pulled faces because, I suspect, of the ginger. But I love ginger, so I'm mincemeat making today. My mum also loves ginger so I'll palm some jars off onto her. I am also cooking down some of the pears to put in the freezer for pear crumbles and purees. I could bottle some, I suppose, but I'm not keen because it involves either alcohol or syrup and fruit stored in syrup makes me squirm as it brings back memories of a nasty incident with a tin of condensed milk when I was a child.

I don't know if Andy is planning any more pear wine, because I caught him looking at how to make harissa paste this morning to use up the remains of the red chillies in the greenhouse. I suspect his interest in the pears is waning.

So, lots to do this week. So much so that I have started a note-book entitled 'JUST DO IT!' in an effort to stop me procrastinating and finding displacement activities like reading magazines. The plan is that I enter the date and job to do, then cross it off when it's done. And when I catch myself being vague, I read the title of the book 'JUST DO IT! and, well, just do it. It's a 'life momentum' thing.

So far, my booklet includes such things as finish reflexology homework, make pear mincemeat and paint the kitchen ceiling.

JUST DO IT!