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LEMONDE, SYRUPS, JUICE AND ALL THAT


 I picked most of the rhubarb before midsummer already; jammed, juiced, pied and froze in. Now I made a last batch of syrup of what was left of it in the garden. At the same time I did a set of summer lemonade, the one with black currant leaves.

 Dag was very eager to help picking the rhubarb. It's fun now that he is so big he can almost really be of help. Well he did pull all of the staves out from the bucket afterwards, but kindly out them back after I told him to. He probably would have repeated the procedure over and over again wold I not ave been finished with the gathering after that.

 Earlier I made syrup the plain way by boiling the fruit (or, herb or vegetable or what it was now again that rhubarb was classified as) and then filtering it and heating it up again with sugar. This time I made the other version of just pouring boiled water on a mix of rhubarb, lemon and some tartaric acid and let it stay for three days, after which I added sugar and set it to boil, the same with the black currant leaves.

 On the last day of letting it soak I put in some mint from the garden too.

I fill up a few bottles to drink at once but put the rest in the freezer, to enjoy later. It's also good to pack along for a picnic or a longer trip away - a bottle of frozen syrup or lemonade in the picnic or grocery bag doubles as a cooler as well.