• it’s super easy (three ingredients)
• it’s at least as cheap as buying jam from the store
• unless you’re buying Fraser Doherty’s SuperJam, your homemade jam will be ten times better than anything else.

Thanks to Phil’s dad for enlightening us!

Here’s the recipe I used for the plum jam (early taste tests suggest that it’s going to be even better than the strawberry).

Easy Plum Jam – makes 2.5 cups (or just over 1 pint).
(adapted from A Whisk and a Spoon)

Ingredients:

1 pound prepared fruit, about 3 cups
1 cup plus 2 T sugar for plum jam/1 ¼ cups sugar for nectarine jam
2 T juice from 1 lemon

Method:

• Prepare a jar, noting the expected quantity of jam above. To prepare the jar, place the glass and lid in a big pot of boiling water. Place the lid on the pot. This will sterilise the jar.

• While the jar is being sterilised, wash, halve and pit plums. Then slice them very thin. You want to wind up with 1 pound of fruit after prepping.

• Place a small bowl in the freezer. This will be used to test the jam later.

• In 10- or 12-inch skillet, bring the plums, sugar, and lemon juice to boil over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly and skimming foam as necessary, until mixture begins to look syrupy and thickens slightly, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

• Test the jam: spoon 1/2 teaspoon of jam into the bowl from the freezer. Allow to set for 30 seconds. Tip bowl 45 degrees to one side; the jam should be a soft gel that moves slightly. If mixture is liquid and runs to side of bowl, return the skillet to heat and cook, stirring constantly, 1 to 2 minutes longer; then repeat test.

• When your jam passes this test, it’s done. Transfer it to the jar, taking care not to touch the inside of the lid or the jar with your fingers (keep it sterile!). Screw the top on, then place the jar upside down. This will help seal it. The jam will now keep, covered and refrigerated, for at least two weeks.

Image credit: The Bitten Word

I rarely take the chance to read whole books. On this five-day foray to England, I read two: The Portrait of Dorian Gray, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. They were both immensely gratifying.

At £4.95, Oscar Wilde’s only novel, Dorian Gray, was a literary bargain. I plucked it from the classics section at Blackwell Books, where you can count on the use of full sentences and historical references. Other benefits of the classics: long words and interesting sentence structure. Reading one is like sitting through a surreptitious English lesson, with social commentary instead of sentence diagramming. Dorian Gray was no exception. It was a colourful, thought-provoking page-turner.

I found The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime on the shelf in a London flat. Surrounded by hundreds of other novels in a bookstore, it would hardly have distinguished itself, but on the shelf of a friend, it instantly had much more appeal. The Curious Incident is narrated by an emotionally-detached boy. It is a window into the workings of a very different mind, an exploration of beauty and empathy, and a lightning-fast read.

Both books are worth your time. Unfortunately for me, I’m now fresh out of books. I’m in the market, as it were. Any novel suggestions?

Image credit: Chocolate Geek

Glasses, like shoes, are not easy to buy online. They have to be comfortable all day, every day. They have to be attractive, and fit your sense of style (or, if you lack your own, you can just adopt Harry Potter’s). Zappos cracked the online shoe market by recognising these difficulties. They offer a no-questions-asked returns policy, free shipping, brand profiles, hundreds of reviews, individual shoe size guidelines, etc. The Zappos business model is based on attention to detail and excellent customer service.

Glasses Direct (despite its altogether perfunctory name), does the same thing for glasses. On their site, you can upload a picture and try on frames in a virtual mirror, use information printed on your current frames to find new frames with similar dimensions, and most amazingly, pay £5 to try on up to four pairs of glasses at home. I poured through the options last night, placed my order, and had confirmation that they were on their way today.

It doesn’t end there. After tweeting about Glasses Direct, they contacted me to ask if I had any suggestions for their service. I recommended two more brands they might stock. Their Director of Product sent a message back to say that he was on it. When I reported a bug in my confirmation email, I got a message from yet another Glasses Direct employee, asking me if I could forward the defective message to him so the tech team could look at it.

That was just today. I can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow when my test glasses actually arrive. This company makes internet sales look easy.

Image credit: pangalactic gargleblaster

1. The book was immensely popular. Occasionally, this is indicative of quality, as in the case of Freakonomics. More frequently, widespread popularity is indicative of terrible writing. Case in point: The Da Vinci Code; Harry Potter.

2. It is possible to feel like you’ve read the book without ever laying eyes on it. At least, that’s how I felt after watching a Malcolm Gladwell clip on Ted, attending a Radley Yeldar presentation rife with Blink anecdotes, and reading numerous references to Blink in newspapers and magazines.

3. New books cost too much money. This is especially true in South Africa, where a new book costs as much as a three-course dinner at a fine restaurant, but is still generally true of the rest of the world.

Curiosity got the better of me when I saw Blink available in the library at work. (Note that libraries are, in general, a very good way to avoid conflict with reason three.)

Blink is great. It’s better than any quotations you’ve read in articles, and there’s more in it than any man can pack in a PowerPoint. It’s well written, interesting and thought-provoking.

Moreover, Blink doubles as a book on relationship advice. One of the primary examples Gladwell explores in the book is a scientist who analyses interactions between married couples and then predicts whether or not they’ll eventually get divorced. The science is solid, correctly predicting marital fate in more than 90 percent of cases. Feeling a little unsure about your partner? Read Blink to find out what sort of behaviour is a “deal-breaker” for couples who divorce.

Perhaps you’re happy with your love life? Well, then maybe you need to read Blink because you’re a bit racist, and you don’t want to be. I’m not pointing any fingers; we profile people all the time, whether we want to or not. Blink explains how that process works and how to train ourselves out of racist tendencies. This is important, substantive stuff.

Perhaps you’re neither racist nor passive-aggressive toward your mate? Don’t worry, there’s plenty more in this book for you. It’s a fast read, educational, entertaining, and currently available for a four-week lease from Launch. Consider it recommended.

Image credit: chefranden

It was the perfect opportunity to use a new tool: Prezi, an amazing new PowerPoint alternative. It’s easy to use, free, and makes cool presentations. (PowerPoint is so ’90s. At least, it is now that I know I can use something else.)

Here’s the presentation I made for the weekend:

http://prezi.com/82606/

I’m afraid you’ll have to provide your own narrative, but if you just click the arrows, Prezi will take you straight through the images.

Prezi. Consider it recommended.

“How to Drink” is a collection of mini-rants, recipes, tips and anecdotes about all things drink-worthy. Moore makes the very reasonable point that while many of us have an understanding of gourmet food, we have little appreciation of what makes a good drink good.

She explains what to consider when making a cup of tea, and lists all the necessities of a well-stocked bar. She describes the differences between various coffee beans, and elaborates on the effects the shape of a glass can have on the taste of wine. Many of her explanations border on the anal retentive, but the information is nonetheless enlightening.

So far, I am inspired to buy a teapot, and to empty my freezer of old, bitter coffee. I am also contemplating the number of new friends I might suddenly acquire if I simply fill my cupboards with all the liquors and spirits Moore deems essential. Consider the book recommended.

Image Credit: lanier67