rose hips and a witch in the family

I had always thought of my grandfather's second wife as a kind of a morose beatnik--she wore black and got my grandfather to put on turtlenecks and grow a goatee and did up his house in a Roger Corman Spanish medieval style with huge metal lanterns and a real halberd leaning against the mantel. All that might have suggested a darkness of spirit beyond mere goth affectations but we mistook it for ambiance.

It was only after the divorce that Vera's occult interests surfaced--in the form of a curse or threatened curse on my family. It would be neat to know more details of this--what tradition did she employ--did she do it herself or hire an expert? Technically none of us believe in curses but I know more than one of my grandfather's descendants has been a little spooked by it. In this, Vera chose an excellent revenge. Real or not, I am thinking of her and her curse today. It is always better to deal with negative emotions in a constructive and open way, but if Vera foresaw the way her maleficence would embed itself in my family's consciousness she was comforted. To that I say, good on you, old girl.

It was from witchy granny Vera that I learned that roses have hips. She took rose hip supplements among a host of other botanical tinctures. This morning I walked into the back garden of the house where my camerado stays when he's in the city, and saw a bobbing bough of roses and hips above my head. The rose hips looked delicious, like crab apples, so, curious, I took a bite.

And spat it out. Though the texture was pleasantly appley--a rose is an apple's cousin--I think rose hips aren't in season yet. Maybe after the frost? The one I sampled tasted like an unripe tomato; the juice was unapologetically bitter and I understood why many believe rose hips to be poison. Because they are loaded with nutrients and abundant in gardens it would be nice to learn how to prepare rose hips. I found a recipe for rose hip mead here and for rose hip jam here.