Cottagecore Princess

"The happiness of the bee is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it." 

-Jacques Yves Cousteau

Nothing puts me in touch with my cottagecore roots like a beeswax food wrap.

These little beauties are cute but so much more than just pretty faces. With them in hand, I've tossed all the tattered plastic covers to my glass food containers, and hidden the plastic wrap in a shadowy corner of my pantry where I haul it out just once or twice a year.

Because, for my day to day food wrap needs, nothing beats beeswax.

Look, I set aside a special drawer in the heart of my kitchen for my beeswax food wraps and their cousins, the silicon storage bags. For my money, there's no higher compliment. 

I first encountered these gems when my fourth-born bought a set and used them to wrap her lunches for work. 

Half an apple? Wrap it up.

Handful of almonds? Fashion a little pouch and tuck them in.

Small single use package of hummus that may or may not be finished at lunchtime? Toss in an extra wrap to seal the opened package for the return trip home.

As I watched her put her beeswax to work in so many clever and useful ways, I was intrigued. So I bought a set for myself and dreamed up a whole bunch more ideas.

Cover a half melon.

Wrap up a block of cheese.

Keep the flies out of the outdoor dinner serving dishes. 

And my personal favorite, put a lid on leftovers. 

In the past couple years, I've built up an inventory of 8 or 10 of these marvelous creations in a variety of colors and sizes. Some were basic economy models, for others I paid top dollar but here's the thing - eventually, through regular use and even the most gentle cleaning, all my wraps lost their oomph. The wax faded away until I was left with floppy bits of cloth that even with the most encouraging and patient pressure would not conform to the shape of anything but a floppy bit of cloth.

So I slipped on my cottagecore can-do attitude and did what any self-reliant country homemaker would do. I Googled for a remedy.

These are the secret sauce to rejuvenating a floppy beeswax food wrap. 

Worth their weight in gold. Or honey. 

And thank the maker, I found one. Though I made a few tweaks to the original DIY, this miracle cure is a snap.

1. Preheat the oven to bake at the lowest temperature possible. Mine is 200F. 

2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

3. Lay out your floppy bits of cloth - either old, tired wraps like mine, or any bits of fresh cotton fabric.

4. Sprinkle beeswax pastilles onto the cloth, about a half teaspoon per square inch. Better to go under rather than overboard because you can always add more.

5. Slip the pan into the oven for about five minutes until the beeswax is melted.

6. Pull the pan from the oven and use your asbestos fingertips (or tongs) to gently, carefully, lift up one side of the cloth and hold it over the pan, allowing the wax to cascade down the cloth, filling in any gaps. Let any excess wax drip onto the parchment paper. 

7. After just a minute or two, the wax will have mostly hardened up. Gently lay the cloth on a rack to finish drying. 

This is the freshest watermelon in town. 

I'll tell you what. The results of this process were radical. My beeswax food wraps are now more lush, waxy, and useful than they ever were before. Every time I use them, I hear bluebirds singing in the trees, smell fresh peach pies cooling at the window, and smile at the darling chipmunks playing at my feet. I feel a true cottage core princess, and thanks to my newly invigorated beeswax food wraps, my food is not only fresher but darn cuter than I ever dreamed possible.