Two topics running simultaneously. I feel like a person sitting at the good end of a dinner party.

First, jam -- making of. In Ottawa, where we used to live, I collected jam jars from the church (I usually put a couple of dozen jars of jam in the annual bazaar), and from several friends and relations. Now, far away from those friends and relations and with the church shut down because of COVID-19, I'm cut off from the black market in Mason jars and actually have to buy them. Everyone else is in the same boat, so of course the shops have none.

This year's output of Five-Fruit Chutney will probably have to go into half-litre jars; consequently, I won't give any to people who are not wildly enthusiastic about chutney.

Pasta shapes -- I never gave much to pasta shapes until I acquired a copy of Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Traditional Italian Cooking, but even now my first concern is whether the pasta is likely to spray sauce around the dining table on its way from dish to Himself's gaping maw (he's not the neatest eater in the grid square). I like rotini, which holds a handsome quantity of sauce without incident, and penne, ditto. Somehow, I have managed to arrive at the end of my 65th year on Earth without ever having cooked radiatore; I should fix that.