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 I’m gone. Besides, if I don’t give him something to do, he’ll chew through everything in sight. Seriously, this guy and his ilk…
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 my favorite condiment. Ketchup, ketchup, ketchup. I love ketchup. When I was a kid, I’d sometimes insist on eating a hot dog bun…
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.
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 brewed in the Adirondacks in 1885. We happened upon it in 2007, when it was recommended to us by a server at the…
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 everything you put in the jar. Everything. If you don’t want it in your mouth, it doesn’t belong in your preserves. You definitely…
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 of plums that year. The thing is, it wasn’t very good jam. As I remember, it was so rubbery you might have bounced…
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 celery, taught me how to make an easy, super-hydrating summer celery drink. Barbara lives and works at the magical Hui Ho’olana retreat center…
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, like, “Don’t I need to clean out the cabinet under the bathroom sink?” Fortunately, I make these pickles often and I know they’re…
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 of apricot jam only last year. But you know what? That very batch won first place at this year’s Marin County Fair, and…
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. I’d never entered a fair before, so I didn’t know what to expect. But I’m a perfectionist and obsessive about details, so I’m…
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 — not enough for even one batch of jam. Rather than send me away empty handed, however, the farmer directed me to one of…
What makes cooking easier and more joyful for you? That’s the question Shauna, at Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef, asked us to answer this month. More particularly, she posed her inquiry in the form of a fill-in-the-blank statement: Cooking grew easier and more enjoyable when I learned [your answer here]. Honestly, I almost sat this…