I just got an email from Molly: 

"Hi Victoria, I hope you are feeling better!! The cider was a hit at the party. As was the cheese and bread, naturally. Here are a few pictures of the setup. Thank you again for all the help. It was really fun."

The cider was a hit; unfortunately, I was a miss. Can you get swine flu from menudo made with free-roaming pig's trotters?

We siphoned and tasted the cider on Monday, and it had a crisp, appley nose and no residual sugar but not nearly enough alcohol, so I instructed Miss Molly to add 2 cups of raw, organic sugar to bump up the alcohol content. I hope the yeast hasn't fully crapped out before it has a chance to work on the sugar. We'll see.

So we (I) diagnosed the cease-fire of the cider as it's having turned all its sugar to alcohol. Sooo… Miss Molly just added another gallon of fresh cider, and as you can see, it's festering once again. Monday is the tasting. Eyes crossed that it works. 

The latest images, courtesy of Molly at Darrin's studio. "As you'll see," Molly says, "it is not foaming much. The air release is still bubbling, however. Also, there was a new development over the weekend—there seems to be a big layer of sediment at the bottom."