Orange Marmelade & Hosta 'Captain Kirk' 12 September 2022

Rosa 'Betsy Sinclair' 11 September 2022

 

Rosa 'Betsy Sinclair'& Rosa 'Bathsheba' 11 September 2022

Rosa 'Betsy Sinclair' & Hydrangea quercifolia 'Snow Queen' 11 September 2022

Hosta 'Midas Touch' - Rosa 'Bathsheba' & Hosta 'Party Favor' 11 September 2022

The lowly apricot has three different names in Spain, Mexico and South America.

The Spanish name albaricoque with its al beginning puts it fairly in the camp of the Moors who ruled Spain for a few centuries. This I found from my excellent Dictionary of the Spanish Language (RAE – Real Academia Española).

albaricoque

Del ár. hisp. albarqúq, este del ár. clás. burqūq, y este del gr. bizant. βερικόκκιον berikókkion.

In Argentina I knew it as a damasco. In Mexico, for reasons that I have not been able to find, it is chabacano. A chabacano is also a happy-go-lucky kind of person.

The above is but a prologue to the purpose of this blog which is to use again(!) the scans of apricot-coloured roses from this blog,( link below) which I wrote today. Such is my idleness in solitude that I will  have to have more than one blog on some days.

An Artist? No. - A Writer? Yes.

For breakfast I slather on my toast cultured/unsalted butter and Bonne Maman Apricot Jam.

Alas! The last jar I bought at my Safeway had that apricot colour. When I tried it over a week ago it tasted differently (but quite nicely). I seems  had bought a jar of orange marmalade.

Really good orange marmalade is made (or was made) from Spanish oranges grown near Burriana that were placed on uncovered wooden barrels and taken in barges (there is no port there). On the way to the waiting ships salt water sloshed into the barrels. That is the secret!  I found this out when I read James Michener’s Iberia before Rosemary, our daughters and I went to Spain in the late 80s.

I have always been delightedly confused by the fact that the Portuguese make marmelada which is cooked quince. In Argentina it is dulce de membrillo and in Mexico ate de membrillo. So why marmelade from oranges?

The two roses featured here are two roses that I purchased after Rosemary died. She loved apricot coloured roses. At one time she shunned yellow in our garden. We were both confused on the difference between yellow and apricot.

Here is a rose that Rosemary insisted on buying a few months before she died. It is yellow. But the rose died in the beginning of this year and I have not been able to replace it.

Rosa 'Buttercup'

And my not having my breakfast apricot jam has been nicely solved by my Lillooet daughter, Ale who brought me a large container of her freezer apricot jam made from her apricot trees.