Pretty Wednesday

This is a shrub we have around our apartment complex. I believe I have identified it as Pyracantha, which is not poisonous, and you're even supposed to be able to make jam out of the berries.

I crushed a berry and it's just a pulpy white mess inside with no juice. But then, raw cranberries are like that, too. Who knows?

Speaking of raw cranberries ...

I went to the store last night to buy a jug of cranberry juice. It's hard to find some without corn syrup in it, which upsets my stomach. I'd been reading that it's better to drink it unsweetened, but that kind doesn't seem available on the west coast.

So then it dawned on me to see if they had fresh cranberries. It's November, after all. So I went to the produce department and circulated around it for a while. Had no luck until I spied the produce guy hauling out a new trolley of apple boxes. He directed me over to the produce sprinkler-cooler thing along the wall, where the cranberries were parked right alongside the Brussels sprouts. No wonder I hadn't been able to locate them!

I got two bags for slightly over 3 bucks, which is what I would have paid for a gallon of sweetened. I spirited it home and boiled up a batch of juice. It's real easy. You just boil the berries until they all split, then strain out the berries and drink the juice.

I expected it to be way more sour than it was. I was expecting, like, lemon-juice, but it was only about as sour as, say, that unsweetened plum leather I made in the summer. A bit tangy but not overly offensive.

And it works better than the sweetened stuff from the jug. In fact, I think this stuff is dangerous. I shall only drink it in small doses.