Shae took off for the Alaskan Interior and left me, Spike, the porcupine, in charge of her blog. When she asked me to do it, I thought she was joking, but then…
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I’ll be away for three weeks and I’ve decided to leave the porcupine in charge. He’s an industrious dude, perfectly capable of watching over the few posts that will appear here while…
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I was thrilled to get this month’s Can Jam assignment — tomatoes all the way, chosen by my buddy Julia — because I knew it would give me a chance to redeem…
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This is my favorite kind of canning project — making something wonderful (and a little bit quirky) from a plant, bush, or tree that we live with every day.
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Today is International Beer Day, so I thought I’d tell you a little story about a great beer and a nice guy. The beer is Dacker. It’s a full-bodied, goes-down-easy ale, first…
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If I’ve learned one thing in the few years I’ve been canning, it’s that what you make is only as good as the ingredients you start with. I believe you should taste…
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The first jam I ever made was plum jam. There were two plum trees in the backyard of the house I was renting and I almost killed myself picking two hundred pounds…
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I thought I’d grown too much celery this year, but now I wish I had more. That’s because our friend Barbara, who happened to be visiting when I was musing on said…
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I was cranky about these cucumbers. I can stand at the counter for hours slicing lemons for marmalade, but give me a pile of cukes to cut into 1/4-inch rounds and I’m,…
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Look at these funny little apricots. They’re Royal Blenheims, and I won’t make apricot jam without them. I really have no license to be such a snob. I made my first batch…
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I came home from the 2010 Marin County Fair with a fistful of ribbons for my preserves. Nine in all, for my seven jars. Did this surprise me? You bet it did.…
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Last week I drove from Fairfax down to Watsonville (six hours round trip) in search of the elusive tayberry. I found one scraggly patch of tays at an organic U-Pick farm —…