Yesterday I went to St. Stephen to celebrate the first birthday of the  youngest member of my our family—my brother’s great-grandson. Making the round of family took me to the seniors’ apartments on Deacons Lane where golden jars of honey drew me to a yard sale.

Joanne Fraser confirmed that she had made the honey herself, just like my parents had. She reminded me that all you need is the blossoms of roses and red and white clover, water, sugar and alum.

It has been years since I have seen home-made honey and I felt like a kid again as I remembered picking and counting the blossoms when the wild roses were at their peak. You had to be careful to get just the blossoms and none of the green part.

I got the recipe from my mother and my husband and I made it once, in the early years of our marriage. It was good but we decided to leave the work to the bees.  That honey got me thinking of other recipes we made, including Green Tomato Mincemeat. It doesn’t replace the real stuff we now get from my sister-in-law but it is a lot better than that sweet stuff labeled Mincemeat that comes in cans and doesn’t have any meat in it either.