How Green Becomes Wood

"Sugar, berries... salt and lemon juice. A lot of berries though." Daisi explained.

Dark turned to look at Daizi and Xander, pleased to see them prepare to spend some time together. He lookrd at Alec, excited for homemade jam, and then bounced Ivy, "Tell me all about your day, Hummingbird."
 
Daizi came over and touched the strawberries to see where they were at, "Yeah, that's fine. It really depends on how textured you want the jam to be. The smoother you like it, the finer you'll want to chop them. I always like some fruit pieces in mine, though."
 
"Now we have to put them in the pot," She went to the cutting board and sliced a lemon in half, "Then we add the lemon juice and the sugar. How sweet do you want it? 'Medium sweet?'" She asked, not being too precious about any of it. It was jam, not rocket science.
 
"That's because the sugar is important in it," Daizi grinned at him, truly pleased he was doing this with her. After adding the lemon juice, she explained about how much sugar they needed before letting Xander handle it. "When we have the heat on, we're going to stir it continuously, do you want to handle that?"
 
"Sure," Xander agreed and took the spoon to stir. He tried to keep his stirring smooth and even and made sure to hit every part so that it wouldn't stick or burn. "When did you learn to make jam? It doesn't seem like a standard thing to learn."
 
Daizi shrugged, "I had too many berries to just eat, I needed to find something to do with them. Last year, I didn't feel anywhere well enough to stand for twenty plus minutes stirring. In retrospect I could've asked for help or pulled a stool over but... It seemed like too much, at the time."
 
"It's like how Dark goes through the hassle of making his own hummus but most people just buy it from the store. It's about convivence. It's not hard to make hummus either, but it just takes time, and a lot of people, especially those who don't have berry bushes, don't think it's worth it to buy a large amount of berries to make something they could just as easily buy." Daizi replied, lifting herself to sit on a clean area of counter, "People just have different priorities."
 
"I keep telling Dark to make baba ganoush more often to see if that is more your speed. It is almost the same, except it's aubergine
instead of chickpea," Daizi commented, "I like both in equal measure. The important thing, though, is if you like khoubz," which was the Arabic word for pita bread, "that is really the life blood of all of this. Ivy already appreciates the virtue---I don't know if you've noticed, but she loved teething on frozen pieces of it. Even when it's fresh, she loves to chew it, and Dark loves how little mess it causes."
 
"We need to boil off all of the water. How thick are the berries in there? If they're too big you can mash them." Daizi said, hopping off of the counter and taking a potato masher out of a drawer before handing it to Xander, "Otherwise, just keep stirring until the water is out."
 
Xander mashed them gingerly until he was satisfied with the berry size and went back to stirring. He thought about striking up a conversation, but he couldn't think of anything to talk about. So, he settled down to stirring, stirring, and stirring.
 
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