The absence! The
neglect! Oh, the humanity!
Hi friends. It’s been
one heck of a summer. Between starting
gainful, full-time employment and attending approximately 236 weddings, there
was little time left for blogging. But
food adventures abounded, and my next few entries will be dedicated to the ones
worth sharing, if well after the fact.
Most recently was my first foray into canning, which was
inspired by Barbara Kingsolver’s first book of non-fiction, Animal,
Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Kingsolver, an author whose fiction I’ve always loved, documented a year
in which her family moved from their home in Arizona for a more sustainable
location – their family farm in Virginia. The work is inspiring; they raise almost all of the food they consume in
a year on their own land, both consuming it fresh and preserving it to last
them through the winter. They raise
and harvest their own poultry, bake their own bread, and case their own sausage. And while it may not be feasible for us all
to do exactly the same things, Kingsolver’s partner Steven Hopp and daughter Camille
offer sidebars of wisdom about how to adapt the same principles for where and
how we live, even in the city (fire escape gardens, anyone?).
When I reached the chapter about August and Kingsolver began
talking about preserving peaches and tomatoes for the winter months, it got me
thinking. While I was home in
Massachusetts for a vacation at the end of the summer, my mother made and
canned beach plum jelly from fruit we’d picked off the trees in the front yard. I loved the idea of making these little
fruits, which I definitely would not find anywhere in Brooklyn, both
transportable and longer-lasting. Just
having that little jar in my Park Slope refrigerator reminds me of the trees
growing out of the sandy soil of our front yard and of spending an hour in the
sun with a giant bowl, plucking the dark purple fruit off the trees (and maybe
snitching a few in the process).
Since September is really the last hurrah for a lot of
wonderful fruits, I got to thinking about this canning stuff. At first it seemed too daunting to try at
home (I just count my mother among the wizards whose success in the kitchen is unattainable by mere mortals), but the more I read about it, the more I realized you don’t need a water
bath canner or a magnetic lid lifter. Sure, they help, but with a deep sauce pot, a good pair of tongs, and a
couple other standard kitchen utensils, it’s not hard at all.
So a couple Sundays ago, when I realized I had some time on
my hands and the farmers market up the block was still selling beautiful New
Jersey tomatoes, I went and bought three bagsful and started in on some Family
Secret Tomato Sauce. Much to my amazement, the sauce turned out
great, my jars did not explode in the canning bath, and the next morning I had
four beautiful, sealed jars of fresh tomato sauce to use at my leisure over the
winter months.
There are tips on home canning all over the web, so I'd suggest just typing that phrase into your search engine. I definitely plan on using this newfound knowledge again soon; with
green tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and green beans filling tables at the
farmers markets these days, I’m planning on taking a stab at homemade
pickles. In the meantime, I’ll continue
to stare fondly at my marinara every time I go to the pantry cupboard.
