Black Raspberries! Literally homemade!!

My yard grows a few things well: a butterfly bush, forsythia, tall, grassy, mower-resistant weeds, poison ivy (like a boss) and black raspberries. Since the raspberries are currently my only food crop, I hold them very dear. But they grow in small numbers. One Saturday a couple weeks ago, I picked a single cup of them and made the teensiest batch of jam.

Over the next week, I picked another generous cup and decided to try my hand at black raspberry shrub. Fruity syrup with vinegar sounds a little crazy at first, but it's a formula I had come across in some of my vintage cookbooks and homemaking books, and when I saw this recipe at Food in Jars, I had to try it.

Like Marisa at Food in Jars says, I mashed the berries with a nearly equal amount of sugar, put them in a class spaghetti sauce jar, and ignored them in the fridge for about 5 days. (Um, she didn't say to use a spaghetti sauce jar, that is just how I roll. Don't judge her.) Then I strained the syrup (I need a food mill or something, this metal sieve and spoon thing is for the birds).

I ended up with 1 1/3 cups of syrup, so I added about 2/3 cup of apple cider vinegar to bring the total to 2 cups. Then I put the shrub back in the same (newly washed) jar. I put a piece of plastic wrap over the opening before I screwed the lid on because a) I am classy, and ii) the lid smells a little tomato-y, even after a fun-filled ride through the dishwasher.

Will it be delicious? Very possibly! I am trying to let it sit a couple days to "mellow" and I'll bring it to my brother and sister-in-law's on Friday. They are adventurous eaters, and I feel like maybe I will need a support system for this.

Furthermore, can we talk about my blackberry fixation these days? I bought this Wild Black beer the other day because it is blackberry flavored and has a creepy purple dog on the label. It's too sweet and not fruity enough, but it satisfied my curiosity.

To Paint or Not to Paint

I just read this article on Curbly about whether painting cabinets is a one-weekend project. Spoiler alert: It's not if you do a good job. No surprise there, but sort of a disappointment.

My kitchen cabinets are...OK. They joined my house in a 1980s remodel, and they are unremarkable. When I upgrade the kitchen, they will be a very low priority. Why is this the only picture I have of my kitchen?

It's not even a picture of my kitchen! It's a picture of how the lumber for my bed was too big to fit in my dining room. I think it's psychological, that I find my kitchen so unsettling that I can't even record it photographically. I impulsively started stripping the ghastly wallpaper and then realized I don't have a single picture of the kitchen as I bought it! I pulled off large, uninterrupted sections and now it is too late. That majestic sight is lost to posterity.

Anyway, I have these dark wood cabinets from the 80s and when I do attack the kitchen (improve lighting, eliminate drop ceiling, paint and please, please, please replace this dizzying floor) I think the cabinets and counters will have to stay for at least a few years. I am toying with the idea of moving the cabinets closer to the new ceiling to open up more space under the counters.

So, do I leave the dark wood there, cleaned and polished? Or do I tackle this painting project? Or do I do something nutty and in-between, like replacing the cabinet doors with something a little more 21st century? The handles go for sure, but what about the doors?

I think it will all depend on how much brighter I can make the kitchen by replacing the single ceiling fixture, raising the ceiling 6 or 8 inches and using a white or yellow paint. Thoughts? Can this kitchen be saved?