Thursday 13 August 2020

Evil Under the Sun

A few days ago I posted  the photo below on instagram.
I was making this years supply of a liqueur made from red wine and rose geranium leaves





1 1/2 litres red wine, 300 grams sugar, a big bunch of fragrant rose geranium leaves and a cinnamon stick.  Simple and you get a light aromatic liqueur
 


So who put the evil eye on me?
The jar has to stand, preferably in the sun, for about a month.
I had the big jar on the bench and decided a better place for it would be the windowsill.

I lifted it up and carefully started to place it in the new sunny position.  The jar exploded.  One and a half litres of syrupy liqueur ran through the window rails, down the wall, under the radiator, the couch and down the outside wall.  Ye gods and little fishes, I couldn't believe it.

It took me over an hour to clear up the mess.  I had to change the mopping water three times.  I had to move furniture, the 25 kilos of bugless flour and half a dozen six packs of water.   

You can imagine the cleaning up involved in sopping up a litre and a half of sticky liquid and cleaning out those rails that the windows slide along.  I even had to get the hose out and spray water all over the outside wall and the tiles on the balcony.

Evil eye.  Maybe, maybe not.
I named this post 'Evil under the Sun' .  Later, after all that damn cleaning I was looking on youtube for another recipe, for K's favourite, cuttlefish and spinach and what should pop as a google suggestion but Agatha Christie's audio book 'Evil Under the Sun'.  And lo and behold the exact same Agatha Christie play was on TV that night.  I don't know quite what all that points to but there was evil lurking around our house that day so I said a few heebie jeebies, crossed myself a few times and spat three times as well.

The day started off with a warning sound from K's phone that something was moving on our ibank account.  Hackers had got into one of our cards and were having a spending spree.  He got on the phone immediately and sorted that out but it took ages waiting in phone queues and then he had to make a trip to our local bank as well.  Not such a simple operation in these days of covid-19.

Today our world is quieter.  

I am going to make another batch of that liqueur.  We have plenty of red wine and I have another big jar.  This time I won't take any photos and I won't be posting on social media.

spit spit spit
evil eye be gone

Oh and by the way, I added a shot glass of ouzo to the cuttlefish (like big kalamari) and my traditional person was over the moon.



23 comments:

  1. They look like Pelagonium leaves, I didn't know you could do that with them. Hope it tastes nice.

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    1. I think that's another name for it . Pelagonium sounds familiar. It's something totally different in greek of course. It has pink flowers and a sweet scent

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  2. I totally commiserate that's like my elderflower champagne exploding over. It took me hours to clean up and sticky forever. Let alone almost ruining my iPhone. That is such a shame. Answer to your question, yes they do the clogging in that area of Appalachia. Probably originates from Ireland, remember Riverdance? Must have a go at that liqueur.

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    1. If you can get the leaves then try it. I should have taken a photo of the plant too. The liqueur, from last year, is really nice with lots of ice

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    2. Ps I love watching the clogging. They're so darn agile

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  3. Wow what a day, hopefully the rest of the week is calmer for you. Cleaning all that up would be a massive job. I remember making plum sauce years ago and was chopping it up with the hand held mixer, while cooking, and found the only plum stone I had missed in the the chopping up...The mess was horrible!!

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    1. Anything with sugar makes it harder to get clean. The windows still stick a bit

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  4. Oh, what a royal pain to clean up! It must be good stuff if you're willing to give it another go! As well, I'm glad you were able to fix the banking / fraud issue. That's always so scary, but it seems that banks and credit card companies are pretty good at making sure you don't have to pay for it. -Jenn

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    1. Fortunately they only spent 280 euros of our money but naturally we were rather worried. The bank says it needs up to three months to delete the expenses. Meantime I suppose we are paying extra every month.

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  5. Good grief I can just imagine the clean up. Don't like the sound of the bank card hack either. Glad you got it sorted. Hope things improve and the new batch of liqueur behaves itself.

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    1. I just made the second batch, only a glad batch though. Taking no chances

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  6. Oh dear, what a terrible waste of good wine!

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  7. Did you ever make ginger beer? There would be a dull thud noise in the cupboard of ginger beer bottles and then a chain reaction....

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    1. I was thinking of making ginger beer. If I ever do I'll keep it in the garden!!

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  8. Linda, your liqueur explosion reminds me of the dozen bottles of home made apple cider I had maturing in the laundry of a share house I once lived in in Perth. I went away for a weekend fishing and they ALL exploded while I was away. One of my flatmates, a girl, cleaned it all up and gave me an earful when I arrived home, with no fish.

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    1. I bet you got an earful!! I was thinking of trying to make gingerbeer and maybe plum wine but I've given up on that idea.
      This jar shouldn't have exploded. It was freshly made, no fermentation. It was definitely an evil eye. I just made another half batch. Must go and spit on it

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  9. I saw the picture on Instagram and thought maybe I should make it too. I have everything here except the wine.

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    1. Try it Yael, when you get the wine. I just made a small batch with one bottle of wine, 750ml
      Cross fingers it's ok

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  10. I would put it down to Pluto who loves to play tricks like this. If Pluto is in my constellation I avoid doing anything.

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  11. Pftt pftt pfttt
    That should hold the mati
    It’s so annoying when something like that happens

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    1. I'm not allowed to say 'thank you'. Na eisai kala

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  12. Love cuttle fish yum yum yum

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