Hot Water Bath

While I Was Out

2011-11-22T21:48:00.000-05:00

I cannot tell you how many times over the last three months some or other thing happened and I thought, "oooh! Blogworthy". Or maybe a child suggested that something would be interesting and I agreed and then...nothing. I'm processing a lot, though, and always thinking of here and you. I'm inspired by Becky's commitment to post every day in November - I think there's an acronym for this - but not inspired enough to actually do it, too. Maybe weekly, I could do. Yes! Weekly until the end of the year? That seems a reasonable expectation. Let's do it.

So. How are you, then? Are you part of the Hot Water Bath Facebook group? Yes, I know. As Faux Fuschia has famously suggested, say what you will about me, I'm a joiner. Most of our canning content has migrated there so if you are looking for something you can't find in my archives it just might be at Mr. Z's little thingymadoodle.

What's left consists largely of the following:

1) Months and ages ago I received an e-mail from someone who claimed to be alarmed by my promotion of, ahem, the patriarchy. I'm not sure what I was supposed to do about that or offer in response. Pictures of my son in the kitchen? Posts about my job and the men who take my direction? A pledge to stop cooking entirely? I don't know. I found it odd, really.

2) Where do you stand on Hiram Walker's Pumpkin Liquor? I don't know. In theory, this could be the Egg Nog game changer I've long sought. If not, though, the downside could be very significant. Thoughts?

3) I'm in the middle of my employer's annual review process and recently was compelled to compose my self-appraisal. In my head this is created of nothing but variations on the phrase "I am awesome" but the reality comes out more like, "if you don't mind so terribly, would you perhaps see your way clear to, um, liking me?". Because I am fiercely competitive, I am alarmed at my own behavior.

4) A confession: I am obsessed with "freezer cooking" blogs. This post is particularly inspiring, focusing on football-based merriment as it does. Although, duh, I am on record as being kind of into the whole preparing-food-in-advance thing, I felt compelled to prove my allegiance to team sports and my free-standing freezer alike by producing, in quantity, nacho toppings such as shredded Buffalo chicken and chili, and sausage balls. Go ahead, it's o.k. to mock, but when you're done mocking I'll still have that shredded Buffalo chicken.

5) My farmer pal dropped by the other day offering a large box of apples, saying he wasn't sure of their variety. What else could I do but make applesauce? So I did, but it wasn't very good. You know those little red cinnamon candies? Turns out that they really can save an insipid applesauce. Take note.

6) Now that my oldest is 11 (!) I need take more care in logging out of things. A couple days ago I was perusing Nerf guns on Amazon - because I am exactly the kind of parent that promotes the patriarchy as well as violent play - but ended up just kind of wandering away when the heat (read: kids hanging around my desk) was on. Later on, the Boy sat down to look for a gift for his sister (!!), looked up Amazon and found all kinds of "what you just looked at" notifications. Same way, he zipped over to gmail to check on a note from a friend and discovered in my inbox a notice that read in its subject "REMOTE CONTROL HELICOPTER ORDER CONFIRMATION". Right. PSA: log out, already.

Tiny Bubbles

2011-08-27T15:04:00.012-04:00

Have you met my new friend Irene? She is evidently coming up for a visit this weekend so we're all aflutter getting ready, even though she's really not pleasant company. The sidewalk chalk and bubble blowing supplies are now in the mudroom's "summer fun" bin, all and sundry outdoor furniture crammed into the enclosed back porch, we've laid in a supply of wine, and I consider us as prepared as we're going to be. As I type, there is a light, but steady, summery rain. This we don't expect to continue for long. Bring it, Irene.

I started a convo over on our Facebook page on the benefits of having a bit of home-prepared food on the canning shelf when faced with these kinds of events. I'm on record all over the place here as being firmly in favor being ready for things, distinct from being prepared, which has taken on a somewhat sinister and aggressive anti-community feeling for me these last years, but even so...I don't know. Did you read The Poisonwood Bible back in the day? Remember the cake mixes hauled all the way to wherever in Africa and the bugs? I think about it. All the time. Doesn't stop me from whipping up another batch of pickled hot peppers or brandied blackberries, though. I guess we all cope in our own way.

Moving on. I'm reading another new cookbook this weekend, Andrew Schloss' Homemade Soda. Now, I really like soda (or pop or soda pop or, in the shoes of Xerox or Kleenex, coke). I really like it - it's a flaw in my locafoodievore armor that allows everything from Orangina (interestingly, people who appear horrified when they encounter me clutching my daily Diet Coke seem to have no trouble at all forgiving me an Orangina or two) to Jolt (I used to love warm Jolt right from the can) to frill-free raspberry tonic from the whatever grocery and darn near everything in between. On this point I am neither ashamed nor repentant, and I do not seek input, thank you for your concern. Flavored bubbles are fun! And delicious! I am not particularly brand loyal and will buy whatever is on sale, although I have a slight preference for Diet Coke. My first morning in Taipei last month I keened with delight at finding a Coke Light in the minibar. At three American dollars, it was money very well spent and after the second morning housekeeping started leaving me extra. I loved those women.

I come by my tastes honestly. When I was a pre-teen (this is what we're calling 'tweens now, yes? 11ish/12ish?) my mother started me on Tab as a way to divert my enthusiasm for grape Kool-Aid (and, ever mindful of my figure, its calories, too). You don't see Tab much anymore, but I can recall clearly it's lemony metallic sharpness and, although I don't precisely miss it, I remember it fondly). Later, when I had my own money, I started buying Jolt by the case. Despite it's tagline promising "All the sugar, twice the caffeine" my parents looked the other way figuring that any jitters I experienced would deal with the stuff they'd rather I not consume.

At one point in my childhood, my mother bought a contraption designed to make sodas. The idea was that you'd bubble up some home tap water and somehow incorporate a flavored syrup and - voila! - soda. Or rather, pop. I didn't start saying soda until I came to college in Philadelphia. Anyway, I don't recall the machine being used more than once or twice and the device ended up on a shelf above the washing machine for some time and is likely still in my parent's basement, unloved and (mostly) forgotten. But look! Homemade soda is back! The more things change, I suppose.

Enter Homemade Soda. I really have no desire to actually make my own soda so cannot explain why the book seemed so compelling. A good chunk of the text is dedicated to instructing the reader to add tonic water to juice or various flavors of simple syrup, something I file under "duh". But then there are true recipes dedicated to using sodas in actual (definition: flexible) foods. My own great-grandmother was devoted to basting her Easter ham with 7-Up, so who knows. And then there's chocolate Coca-cola cake, a recipe my mother made exactly once ever but which I recall with perfect clarity 30 years later (why did I never make a Jolt cake, I wonder?). Soda obviously has more Proustian implications than we recognize.

Whether I actually produce something out of this book remains to be seen. That it has prompted a host of remembrances and made me wistful is completely unquestioned.

Pulse, Finger On

2011-08-19T20:33:00.000-04:00

I’ve long enjoyed the online cookbook purveyor formerly known inexplicably as Jessica’s Biscuit. I bought an Elizabeth David compendium from them years ago – much loved but heretofore unused in any actual cooking application – and have spent hours perusing their paper and e-catalogs. Hours. I’ve always appreciated their forays into the novelty, too, in the form of insect cookbooks (which I would neither purchase nor even peruse, although I respect its position in the world) or an entire cookbook on sous vide (my conviction: the idea is irredeemably dumb). So, you know, a fan.

Lately I’ve been more interested in the site’s “new and notable” (henceforth N&N) section as a barometer of trends about which I might not have been aware (meaning any/all of them). For example, I’ve read in multiple places recently that cupcakes are on their way out as a fashionable dessert and that we could look to pie to take the number one place in our sweets-loving hearts. Based on the number of popsicle books gracing the summer shelves, though, I’d say that pie needs to wait a bit. I’ve made a few pops in my time, but none very impressive. Mostly, my cold dessert achievements are in the ice cream realm. There, too, I am apparently a piker. A number of ice cream-related books appear on the N&N.

I don’t remember how I came to have Kimchi Chronicles on my library hold. Nevertheless there it is and I’ll be picking it up this weekend. Aside: There was a very sketchy Korean restaurant down the street from our house in Charlottesville from which we would, once or twice a month, pick up bulgogi and spicy rice cakes. When I say “we” I mean my husband because telling you that the place was sketchy doesn’t really communicate that the place was sketchy, and so I refused to enter. The food was good, though, and we’ve missed it terribly these last five years so I thought I’d figure out how to make the rice cakes at least. For a nice change of pace, I must be on the bleeding edge because I spy three books covering Korean cuisine on the N&N.

I’m also nicely surprised to find that N&N has quite a few books featuring Spanish food, given my recent adoration of Claudia Roden’s Food of Spain. Other than tapas and paella and maybe gazpacho, Spain gets short shrift in the food buzz world, so I’m kind of glad to see five books on the lsit. There a number of aspect of Spanish life we’d do well to adopt, plancha is not the least of them.

Then see The Sweets of Araby and Purple Citrus and Sweet Perfume and 150 Tagines. Saffron! Honey! I really, really would like a gander at each of these books. Can we draw any lines between them and current events? Why the enduring fascination with that part of the world? Is it that it holds so much of our history and future? I don’t know. I’d like to find out, though. Also: honey.

Oh, and canning! How could I forget? Being as I’ve been here in my little corner of the ‘tubes for more than 9 years now and these days you can’t swing a scalded tomato without hitting a canning blog, it’s not like I should have been surprised at the number of new home preservation books out and about. I wonder if any of the authors started with blogs. Did I miss the brass ring, do you think? No matter, some of these look really interesting but…I don’t know. I have my favorites (that is: the first two I ever bought, plus the Complete Book of Home Preserving that Ball sent me a couple years ago) and, call me sentimental if you must, but I seldom find a reason to pick up new ones. Always nice to see what people are up to, though. And? Five canning books in the N&N (not to mention a hipster-populated spread in Bon Appetit) surely means that the trend has hit maturity and any minute now we’ll be able to buy used jars at a deep discount from the folks who kicked their day jobs to open artisanal pickle companies.

These days, my cookbook acquisition budget is woefully inadequate. Luckily, browsing the N&N and learning that I'm not always missing out on the bleeding edge is still free.

Postcards From the First Day of Summer

2011-06-21T20:50:00.000-04:00

1) This is the time of year when the bloom of garden excitement begins to fade. You know, the weeds are coming back after initial clearing but there's not much in the way of food. At least not yet. It appears, though, that my early efforts may pay off in the form of yellow squash. Note to self: look up summer squash recipes.

2) This month's issue of Country Living featured a cover line that read something along the lines of "Summer's Perfect Wine" or somesuch. Turns out the editors have become fond of a particular "summer white" which I have loved for some time.

We usually pick up a couple cases for summer fun but this year we bought three. One doesn't mess around in the face of media madness, you see. If you were to come to my house for dinner between, say, the end of May and Labor Day this is what I'd pour for you.

At $8ish dollars a bottle, Famega Vinho Verde is hands down the best affordable fizz you'll ever buy. Do you think less of me for waiting to take delivery of my three cases before recommending that you, too, seek it out?

3) I'm reading cookbooks again after a long hiatus. Through a convoluted path I've become a late addition to the Claudia Roden fan club (if there isn't such a thing, there ought to be - Claudia, call me!). Although I am not particular to Spanish cuisine, I'm relishing a slow, deliberate read of The Food of Spain. This book is absolutely amazing. Literally epic in scope, the first 100 or so pages is nothing short of a culinary history textbook. Roden traces Spain's intertwining Christian, Jewish, and Muslim histories that are the underpinning of every summer's breathless tapas articles. Truly extraordinary and I insist that you go buy a copy immediately, if not sooner.

4) We're enjoying a very nice lack of extracurricular activities at the moment. Baseball and dance are over and there's little movement on the scout (girl or cub) front. The next six weeks stretch luxuriously mayhem-free. There are some camps on the calendar, of course (in our town, parents who do not abundantly enrich their offspring during summer break are considered reportable to the U.N.), but until football and cheer begin August, it's nothing but old-fashioned summer fun around here. Firefly-chasing, popsicle-licking, tree-climbing, dog-hugging summer fun.

It's glorious.

Sometimes Early Looks a Lot Like Late

2011-04-04T20:28:00.000-04:00

I didn’t pull out the Easter decorations last year. I didn’t host a post-church family brunch. I didn’t color hard boiled eggs with the kids. Oh, we had a delightful celebration and I have no regrets whatsoever about the somewhat unorthodox way we made our observance, but that did not stop me from looking ahead to this year and planning a return to the Old Ways. I thought that certainly this year there would be decorations, there may well be a brunch – heck, I might even conduct my traditional frenzied search for last pair of white girl's tights anywhere in town.

These children own 17 types of adhesive products and yet they will steal my Scotch tape if I look away for so much as a second. They cannot be trusted.

Early guidance suggests that none of this will happen again this year. I've not dispensed with the critical pre-holiday planning stages, however. To my way of thinking, there’s nothing like the memory of a recently passed or about-to-be whiffed holiday to prompt progress toward the next time around. Women’s magazines advocate such an approach – buy Christmas wrap on December 26th and so forth – but I really feel that I’ve got the methodology down to an art. My procedure is as follows:

Six weeks before the day arrives, write a lengthy and elaborate list of projects to be completed. You might, for example, want to make your own wrappings out of quilting fabric or wish to potato-stamp bunny shapes on a hemp table runner. Maybe include both – there’s no need to be under-ambitious, I always say.
Purchase, recover from dusty underbed storage, or otherwise gather from the kids’ art bins the required supplies. If you require more than two adhesive products an angel gets her wings, so don’t be shy!
Pile said supplies on sideboard, end table or sofa, awaiting time (and energy) to use them.
Express gobsmacked shock as the holiday comes and goes while preparatory supplies go untouched on sideboard, end table or sofa. Wonder what you did with those 42 days, and then strike vague recall of unarticulated expectations at both home and work having chipped away at what had seemed to be abundant leisure.
Find time (and energy) the week after the holiday when the rest of one’s colleagues and friends are recovering from festive excess to complete the projects because there’s no way those things (see Step 3) are going to be put back under the bed. Too crowded under there anyway, what with all the pipe cleaners and felt, and fabric paint leftover from prior years.

It’s simple, really. While to the rest of the world I will appear to be ever so late with my adorable beaded springtime napkin rings and wooden eggs decoupaged with butterflies, I maintain that, no, I am quite prepared for next year. Bring it, April 8, 2012. I’ll be ready for you.

Happiness Ahoy

2011-02-27T22:13:00.000-05:00

Round about a year and a half ago now, I put up a post numbering thirty things that were bringing me joy in that moment. Every so often since then I've revisited the list and have found it quite enduring. I still love Georgette Heyer's novels and near everything else listed (especially the Roses Lime, because I've been in a gimlet place lately. Scurvy, do you think?). I'd be hard pressed to keep it to 30 items these days and, having read Suburban Matron's Little Pleasures post, I'm thinking I can make it straight up to 50, with the addition of more than a few non-thingish items. Sure, she's got some mighty excellent literature and even physical fitness on her list, but I've got romance novels and pie. I'd say it's a draw.

So. Let's do it. Twenty more things that make me happy, and then I want to hear a couple from ya'all. Deal?

My new role at work. Yummy.
Adele's Rolling in the Deep
Today's Philadelphia Inquirer review of the Kyber Pass Pub - I was brought to the Khyber once or twice by a pre-Brainiac beau and have ne'er thought of it since. I wonder what ever happened to that boy?
The peanut butter cupcakes my girl and I baked today (maple frosting, salted peanut garnish).
That Downton Abbey is now available on Netflix
That the young mother in My Village who nearly died having her babies is stronger every day
That I can draw my son out of himself every time with the suggestion that we bake a pumpkin pie
The dining table I intend to order soonest
That three people I like and respect have found jobs
My latest amazon order, full of the Duchess of Devonshire and gluten-free recipes (not in the same book)
My new grey boiled wool jacket
Top Gear (don't tell my husband - I'm getting much mileage (ha!) out of rolling my eyes when he tunes in)
The napkins on which I'm embroidering a pinecone motif. They're a surprise for a friend and I think she'll really like them.
The two cases of wine we bought yesterday, mostly malbec and rioja
My mother's high school graduation picture
Key Lime pie. Frozen. On a stick. Covered in chocolate.
Our new dog. Her name is Summer and she's fantastic.
The local theatre company that offers excellent productions AND affordable tickets.
I'm keeping my promise to myself to take lunch to work when I'm in the office
That I could go on for 50 more

That was fun. Now it's your turn. I know, I haven't been around in a spell, but throw a girl a bone, won't you? What are you enjoying these days?

Busy Not Rushing Into Anything

2011-02-23T22:13:00.000-05:00

Refreshed, renewed and relaxed, that's my motto. As well it might be with months and months off.

A girl can't have a blog-cation forever, though, so I'm percolating some new projects. There's tons I want to do and there's no point waiting for a perfect moment.

I'll be back. Just as soon as I finish this last bonbon.

Walk Without Flinching

2010-08-27T21:32:00.004-04:00

So. How are you then? Me, I've been on an extended pout and am quite ready to see the back of summer, if not 2010 in its entirety. You know those times in your life when people you otherwise sort of enjoy say things like "God doesn't give you what you can't handle" or "Even the darkest clouds have a silver lining" and you kind of want to punch them except you don't because your sainted charm school instructor might well rise from the dead and haunt you, thereby resulting in even less sleep then you've recently enjoyed? You know those times? That.

The less said the better.

In between pouting and the occasional dainty tear poised ever-so-fetchingly at the corner of my right eye, I've spent a good amount of time this summer trying to feed my family in ways that won't kill them. Oh, yes, that's right. You haven't heard. I say "not kill them" instead of "not kill him" because we now have in hand the Girl's allergy assessment and blah blah blah, it turns out she's nearly as unfeedable as her father albeit in a slightly different way.

Because nothing thrills me as much as solving a problem in a way that involves as many trips to the library as possible, my recent list of check-outs reads like someone with a very troubled constitution, indeed. With allergy-free and celiac-aware publications hitting the shelves at what seems to me to be a rapid pace - perhaps it is less so to people with more experience in these matters than I - there is plenty from which to choose for guidance. One would think that there would be no trick at all to ridding oneself of troubling foodstuffs. At home, anyway. Let's not talk about restaurants for a spell, as we're not really speaking at the moment.

Vegan and vegetarian cookbooks are near useless for their reliance on wheat and soy products. Gluten-free resources often feature bean flours and nightshades heavily, both of which are very strictly limited for us. I found one book I adored, only to discover that it called in nearly every recipe for an ingredient that is priced upwards of $27 a pound. Then there are the recipes that sound wonderful but turn out to take not unlike library paste (which, now that I think on it, probably has a wheat binder and therefore cannot be eaten by at least two people with whom I live).

Interestingly, among the cookbooks most useful in retooling my kitchen and dining table weren't intended specifically for special diets at all. Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals, in particular, was helpful for reminding me that simple is better and there are few - if any - of my family's problem ingredients in fresh food, humbly prepared. Likewise, Everyday Food: Fresh Flavor Fast: 250 Easy, Delicious Recipes for Any Time of Day, helped me retain the notion that a decent, healthy meal prepared and served sometime this century (even when I've had a bad day at work and tonight is riding night and...) is not necessarily an impossible mission. No need for special or shockingly expensive ingredients, no need for deprivation, and no need for substitutions when a bit of redirection is possible and even desirable.

Hey, is that a silver lining I see?

P.S. If you're looking for a bit of inspiration for simple, seasonal meals, I recommend these for clear and concise directions and a refreshing lack of jargony references to specialty products:

Guests Merry With Your Cheer

2010-07-14T20:10:00.003-04:00

My sister and her family are coming to visit this weekend. Among the routine logistical back-and-forths, the plans have involved a long Facebook thread about what we'll eat while they're here and where we'll buy it and how it will be prepared and whether or not I'll bother pleasing anyone but the two of us.

This kind of selfishness will surprise no one who knows me even a little bit well. It also has some precedent when applied to my sister and myself. We're the duo that, once upon a time, flew clear across the country to visit with our father's sisters and spent the entire long weekend with them eating pancakes at this very specific place and having dessert at that very specific place and so on (that we were young at the time and somewhat in their care comforts me in that it means we come by our obsessions honestly). Among other memories, I carry with me the yogurt and berries we ate at some posh hotel (the only breakfast we could afford), the peach daiquiris our grandmother served (it was the last time I saw her before her death less than two months later), the picnic lunch our aunt packed for the plane ride back to Philadelphia (shrimp & cream cheese spread on mini bagels which lasted until we just barely cleared the runway in San Francisco).

Some years after that trip we sat together in our parents' kitchen with the man that she would soon marry. Why we were there and our parents were not I don't recall, but I do remember what we ate. Brie and roasted garlic (hey, it was the 90s), a pesto made with half spinach and half basil (it shrunk in the micro), smoked salmon. That my future brother-in-law loves my sister was abundantly evident because knowing him better now I can say that there's no way on earth we'd get away with putting that array of foodstuffs on the table these days.

She'd like to do a bit of canning while they're visiting so I'm hoping to cue up some brandied blueberries or blackberries. That's an easy choice because we won't need to monitor a jelling point or whatever and can thus accommodate the distractions our collected five children will no doubt visit upon us. We'll also visit the local farm market, the merits of which she's listened to me extol for years now. I'll buy a couple chickens to grill and maybe some peaches to make into soup. Friday night I'll grill some cheese (yes! it's true - man, I love this stuff) and wrap bacon around jalapeños from the plants out by the old stone wall. We'll open the olives that are already marinating and the red onions I mixed up earlier this evening. Collectively, they'll be the perfect foils for a hot, humid Philadelphia summer evening.

When my sister comes to town.

There's a Lesson Here Somewhere

2010-07-07T17:56:00.007-04:00

If one is of a mind to do a bit of canning and looks around online for help and resources, it does not take long before one realizes the broad spectrum of humanity that takes a like-minded interest. You’ve got your homemaking traditionalists, your survivalists, your back-to-the-landers, some latter-day hippies and crunchies, gardeners experiencing scope creep, foodies (who overlap, but do not totally align, with slow foodies), locavores (ditto), organic-interested activists, and so on. Oh, and hobbyists. I think that last one is mine, although I have much in common with most – if not all – of the others and it helps to understand that there are no hard lines in between and that many of us move in and out of various canning circles as we go about our business.

Anyway, my point is that many of us come to the canning thing with something of an agenda beyond getting through the winter. And, like opinions on canning safety, there are divergent viewpoints on the value of other methods of “putting food by”. Some folks include drying in their repertoire (I dabble – dried cherries are an awfully nice thing to have around but can’t for the life of me understand the appeal of, say, ostrich jerky) and many canners also keep a freezer. Some folks love their freezer (or dehydrator) and cannot imagine why on earth someone like me would stand in summer’s heat over vats of boiling water. For me, striking the right balance between frozen, canned and dried items is a particular pleasure, akin to solving an only-slightly complex puzzle the rewards for having done so give on.

One of the many displays of canned goods on offer at the Monticello gift shop. Yes, I take pictures of canned goods displays. I can't be the only one. Oh, I am?

I keep a separate freezer that when spring rolls around is nigh on empty but begins to fill again as the growing season marches on. Except when we’re away on vacation and a massive summer storm runs through town, downing trees and power lines and we don’t have electricity for four days and my sister-in-law (who is lovely and wonderful in every way) does her level best to save everything but in the end the entire business is a loss. You ken that I’m not speaking hypothetically about this, yes? We returned home, with many frantic phone calls and texts in between, to find it all gone – the meats and berries and grains and soups and…all of it. So we’re starting from scratch (ha!) just as summer begins to – pardon me for this one – heat up, harvest-wise.

Canning I’ll still do as I have a standing order for dilly beans and I have a few wants of my own, but I think this is a great opportunity to re-examine the freezer and its prospective contents. More beef is definitely out – we likely wouldn’t have finished what we still had for quite some time anyway what with the allergies and all. More chicken? Fish? We’ve got a bead on a source for responsible salmon (as opposed to the kind that drinks all your whiskey and then steals your car keys?) so that might be doable.

The path remains to be discovered. There are a lot of open questions to address regarding our changing palates, energy use, how and what we want to eat and what’s available to us from which to choose. While we work through the issues, I’m more grateful than ever that we’ve kept our toolbox, so to speak, well-populated. In my work, I deal in a concept called “business continuity,” an idea that turns the negative connotations of redundancy and multiple back-ups on their heads and recasts them as necessary components of the organizational ecology. If I’ve learned nothing else this week, I realize that I’ve brought the concept home in a way that I hadn’t quite realized. This summer, more glass jars and freezer bags. I've got a system to back up!

By Any Other Name

2010-06-06T21:45:00.004-04:00

While a great many ugly realities may be laid squarely at the feet of economic globalization there is one positive for which I am of late unrelentingly grateful. My workplace, populated as it is by an extraordinary collection of émigrés to the U.S., has provided me a number of escape routes for dealing with Brainiac’s allergy situation and his attendant sudden inability to eat darn near anything. When my colleagues and I are not breaking into spontaneous choruses of We Are the World after staff meetings, we’re sharing lunch and recipes. It’s not at all unusual these days for a man born in China to show up in the cafeteria with homemade pierogie or, say, for me to bring extras of my latest batch of pho to pass around. Of course, in the way of multiculti knowledge share, we each add our own special touch to whatever dish is on offer. I regularly scandalize my Indian-born colleagues with my insistence on preparing chana masala in a slow cooker and those pierogie are more often accompanied by a bit of lime pickle rather than fried onions and sour cream.

I’m not making as much pho these days what with the whole beef-free thing going on and all. There have been frustratingly large numbers of other dishes that are also no longer on the family menu and I confess that it’s been getting me a bit down. (Someday I will tell you about the tears – copious – that resulted from the salad I now call the Chickpeas of Death.) In sharing my misery, loving company as it does, with co-workers the other day I realized that I already had access to all the knowledge I needed for dealing with the challenge of feeding my husband in this, our new normal. Knowing that most cultures do not eat the volumes of beef, pork and wheat to which we’d become accustomed, I merely had to make the leap from the abstract to the personal. So I did what anyone in that situation would do…I dug my spoon into a friend’s wheat-free, soy-free, and meat-free lunch, declared it delicious, and demanded the recipe.

Which is how I came to be buying a large sack of sabudana - known to me as tapioca – at my favorite Indian grocery. The dish shared with me at lunch that day turned out to be 100% allergen-free (at least for Braniac – given the presence of peanuts your mileage will seriously vary on this point and may actually come to a screeching halt) and amazingly delicious for someone whose only exposure to tapioca was via puddings from a long-ago childhood. As with the aforementioned peirogie and chana masala, I expected that I would not follow the directions precisely but would likely filter them through my own culinary baggage/heritage. Even executed in my own Western-style kitchen, I expected deliciousness and just the thing for feeding to a man who is tiring of borders, culinarily-speaking.

This is not my sabudana*. This is what my sabudana was supposed to resemble - little individual grains of chewy, nutty, spicy goodness. What actually appeared in my pan to was translucent, gelatinous, quivery, alien, and not generally good looking. We all agreed the taste was excellent but...no one could bring themselves to eat all that much of it. I texted news of the failure to the friend who gave me the recipe in the first place and she diagnosed too much water, too much oil and too-coarsely ground peanuts. So, put us down as work to be done.

In the meantime, I'll be in the conference room, working on my very best Cyndi Lauper impression.

* (This is not my picture and I don't know from where it came originally. If it's yours, let me know and I'll take it down or give credit, whichever you prefer.)

The Way to His Heart

2010-05-19T21:19:00.006-04:00

Over the years of my parenting I’ve been asked from time to time how it came to pass that my children will sit at a dinner table and discuss their feelings on the kale vs. chard debate or with what trinket did I bribe the Boy to loudly, and in ear shot of his football team, remind me to buy extra beets at the farm market. I’m always pleased and proud to be asked because it was always one of my goals to raise my little humans into big humans who have broad palates, the ability to conduct at least rudimentary cooking operations, and an appreciation for what has cringingly become known as “real food”. I like that, more or less, this is exactly what they’re becoming. Sure, there’s a bit of strangeness going on in what we have come to refer to as The Cheese Rules. And the Girl’s assertion that she is a “half part [sic] vegetarian” who likes cheeseburgers, bacon, shrimp, and pork lo mein but that's it is, I admit, I bit odd. She’s only six and we forgive her a few eccentricities.

I cling to success in this area largely because many of my other parenting goals (see also: screen time, cheerful tidiness, and WebKinz purchases) have gone unrealized. Even as I pat myself on the back, though, I know the truth is that I have been lucky. My family is food-secure, I’ve always had a (more or less) well-appointed kitchen at hand, my children were born and remained allergy-free, and we adhere to no religion-based dietary mandates. It’s not that hard with such advantages in place to raise kids who appreciate a broad menu. You might say it’s been a piece of organic, whole-wheat, fair trade, ever-so-slow, artisanal, shade-grown cake.

For those who are at this very moment reaching for kebab skewers and their little Marsha voodoo dolls, try to contain your glee when I share that the glorious run of household food simplicity has come to a screeching halt. A wheat-free, dairy-free, beef-free, soy-free, legume-free, pork- and tomato-free halt more specifically. And not because of the kids. It’s my all grown-up and heretofore presumed to be food allergy deficient husband who has thrown a wrench into the kitchen works.

Although the verdict is that these allergies are "probably" not fatal, it's not a risk I am willing to take. Provisioning and cooking for my loved ones is among my primary pleasures and I'd really, you know, rather not kill them. I’m learning new techniques, new ingredients (Teff? those Ethiopians are on to something!), and new recipes while he adapts to a future that will be somewhat lower than expected in burgers, Scotch, and salsa. A number of my easy weeknight standby dinners – chana masala or stir-fry, for example - are, quite literally, off the table. There will not be as many canned tomato products this year, but darn skippy we're upping the applesauce. Meanwhile I'm taking another looksee through Fancy Pantry for as yet untried sauces and condiments to liven up our revised roster of available foodstuffs.

Things just got a bit more interesting. If you need me, I'll be in the kitchen working out a decent chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Thy Kindness Freezes

2010-04-26T21:57:00.005-04:00

Not long ago I mentioned to a pal that I like to include cleaning out my freezer as one of my spring household re-boot chores. She seemed startled by the admission, as well she might since I am not known around town for my housekeeping prowess. The words “casual” or “breezy” could be applied in this regard and I have not the slightest grounds to argue. Anyway, apparently freezer sorting wasn’t on her spring tidying list (perhaps because her freezer never gets out of order in the first place) but she was a trooper in listening to my recitation of the reasons why I do what I do: the inevitable forgotten package of snow peas, now more grayish than green, the three utterly shriveled and now unusable bananas which had originally been intended for pancakes, a bag of last springs asparagus trimming that I was 100% sure would end up as soup. Well. They’re all gone now and me and my freezer feel lighter than air and ready to take on the next year’s gleanings.

The only thing I couldn’t reconcile, I told her, was a lone bag of cranberries left over from the fall. One bag really isn’t enough to play with in any kind of fun way but, as far as I knew, the cranberries would keep a while longer. Keep or toss, I wanted to know. While my meager tendencies toward thrift and orderliness battled, she calmly walked to her own freezer, took out a package of cranberries and held it up as an offering. “Want them?” she asked. “I won’t use them and will just keep them until they need to be thrown away.” Score! (Aside: this is why you should always share the minutiae of your life with friends and internet. You never know when someone will give you a bag of cranberries in response.)

Two bags of cranberries is enough to make a smallish amount of very delicious chutney, which can be canned or refrozen in a labeled and dated container so you know what it is when the memory of having made it inevitably fades (which it will, even for you young and chippy types). Even more fun, a perfectly lovely chutney can be made with the little bits of whatever else you encounter during freezer cleaning. A cup of raisins? Check. A few tablespoons of candied ginger? Oh, my, yes, yes, yes double check. Some chopped jalapeno? I didn’t, but there’s no reason why you couldn’t.

And that’s one reason I adore making chutneys. There are no real requirements, no chemical reaction to prompt and pray for, virtually no rules outside of minding your sugar and acidity in the event you plan water bath processing. My recipe originally came from my dear college friend Kate, with whom I now speak only twice a decade or so but for whom I would gladly and with no questions asked traverse the world if she called out of the blue and requested it of me, and she in turn learned it from someone named Sabra. That’s what it says at the top of the dot-matrix printed page (hello, old Mac SE and your adorable double-floppy arrangement!), “Sabra’s Cranberry Chutney”. Sabra’s version tends toward the more tangy and sweet, while over the years I’ve cut the vinegar and ancillary fruit but upped the spice and citrus. That’s the way of chutney, friends, and I recommend it heartily.

This time I used those two bags of berries, the juice of the last orange (no more oranges until winter comes again – this last one wasn’t looking to hot but was just fine for juice), some raisins, chopped candied ginger, two cups or so of sugar, and about a half cup of leftover rioja from the night before for an added peppery kick. Cranberries cook down easily and thicken well. Too well in this case, so I added another half cup of o.j. on the back end and called it good. If I wanted to be more authentic I’d have added some vinegar or something pickled, but I’m not totally wedded to authenticity here and I like the final product so that’s that.

Now, as I said, this didn’t make a lot – three cups, maybe. It can be canned and processed in a hot water bath, if you’d like and, if I went that route, I’d have done it in quarter pints and processed just in a largish saucepan - no need to fire up the ginormous canning kettle for such a wee bit of processing. I’d say fifteen minutes after return to full boil ought to do it and there you go. For my part, I placed two well-marked freezer containers back into my newly cleaned and tidy freezer to await use.

And what use might that be?

No Noble Thing Can Be Done Without Taking Risks*

2010-04-12T19:28:00.003-04:00

Show me someone who blogs about having done a bit of canning and I’ll show you someone who’s been anonymously scolded for real or imagined safety infractions. Home canners do, or should, pay attention to the latest guidelines, of course and I, myself, have reminded folks from time to time that the old ways are just that - old, as in former - for a reason. The problem is that defining “guidelines” as the word pertains to canning is nearly as futile as defining “risk”. Add to the mix variances in resources, facilities, and skill and you’ve got the makings for a world of experts, few of whom are shy about proclaiming the rightness of their own thoughts on the subject. Here are mine:

Risk is a tricky thing. Home canning has an inherent degree of risk (although we’ll do well to remember that likewise does consumption of commercially-produced foods) which has been mitigated over time with new research on food borne pathogens and corresponding technological improvements. That’s the upside. The downside is that, with every advance in safety knowledge, a whole bunch of people feel that the heretofore-regarded-as-safe activity in which they’ve engaged for years has been unjustly maligned. I confess that I feel this way about water bath canning plain tomatoes (no longer recommended, although I still do it with older varieties) and I’ve had more than one e-mail from folks who share their opinion that old mayo jars were good enough for grandma so they’re good enough now and that however many untold dollars are saved practicing this economy. Then there’s great and mighty Martha Stewart herself, who advocated for sealing jam with paraffin (admittedly for her own use only) not all that long ago, a practice now discredited.

Where does this leave us? Ultimately, I do not think that canning risk is different from any other. I do things all the live long day that are pretty darn dangerous – driving, sitting at my desk, grilling the family dinner – but the fear I might bring to these activities is tempered into mere caution with the application of knowledge and experience.

And there’s my bottom line: there’s nothing to do for risk but learning more and canning more. For those that would assume that someone is being foolhardy for one of those previously mentioned real or imagined infractions, I recommend further the understanding that no two people are going to be on the same place with regards to risk. For every person I’d love to convince to give up the mayo jars, there are two who would rather I not water bath my tomatoes. The mayo jar people have the weight of experience on their side since they’ve been at it for years and I call upon knowledge. I know the guideline and I know why it was issued, so I can react accordingly in my intent to disregard. It’s all about knowing where you are, being confident in what you know and getting on with it.

That’s the making. On the eating side, my feeling is that there’s less wiggle room. With luck, following good canning procedures will result in only good food on the shelf. That’s not always the case, though, and knowing what to look for when the time comes to open a jar is key. The jar shouldn’t be more than a few years old, for starters. Goodness knows that I find some ancient thing tucked in the waaaaay back of the cupboard more often than I’d like to admit and I’m not as good with labeling as I ought to be, so, you know, see also: cobbler’s children and shoes. Don’t eat anything that you cannot state when it was made and/or how long you’ve had it. Like the jar of mango jam I just found – I haven’t made mango jam in years and years.

Likewise, don’t eat anything for which the lid is weeping or oozing, or if there’s any strange looking unidentified stuff around the seal. Does the food look and smell as you expect? There will be some natural degradation of color, but generally the food in the jar should present as if it were put there yesterday – not a foolproof test since many nasties are odor- and colorless, but one to which attention should be paid regardless. Pass by anything that doesn’t appear to have been canned according to guidelines (er, see above for more on that point). See the jar up there? The apples were sealed without adequate liquid and, now that I think about it, I don’t know where these came from or how/when I got them. They’re outta here.

This pre-eating checklist seems cumbersome and scary, but it’s not. Experience and knowledge gets it down to as natural as when opening any other product. With the experience and knowledge comes the confidence to make and stand by your own canning decisions. Since I started canning in the first place to exert some control over my food supply that is entirely the point.

* Michel de Montaigne, French Philosopher (1533-1592). Monsieur de Montaigne also said, "He who fears will suffer, he already suffers from his fear" which also applies, don't you think?

Thank Goodness I Canned: Pickled Hot Peppers

2010-04-04T17:14:00.011-04:00

We use a lot of pickled jalapenos here. They’re good on pizza, nachos (one of my quick dinner standbys and one that can be made in a fairly healthy manner, by the way) burgers and sandwiches of all kinds and for adding a bit of a jolt to grilled meats and kebabs. The canning brine (I use a very standard 2 parts vinegar, 2 parts water, 1/2 part kosher salt) can likewise be used in marinades, drinks (yes! Really!), as a stir-in for plain rice or potatoes, or to punch up the flavor in all kinds of otherwise insipid dishes.

A few evenings past I arrived home feeling snacky and cocktailish and in absolutely no rush to get to the usual weeknight dinner routine. Perhaps it was the planned meal of leftovers that proved less than inspiring or maybe seeing the sun for the first time in at least a week was the cause, I don’t know. Either way, I wanted to capture a bit of languorous leisure before jumping into the post-workday fray. Trouble is, we’re down to not all that much on the shelves at the moment (which is why I planned on serving those uninspiring leftovers in the first place). Just as I was closing the refrigerator door and about to issue a dejected sigh, I spied what I’m fairly sure is the last jar of pickled jalapenos. There were possibilities in that there jar.

A bit more scrounging brought up some chevre, a lonely scallion and a box of Triscuits which Brainiac must have bought because I know that I didn’t. No matter. With these three ingredients, I had the makings of a simple and much-welcomed zippy little nibble. With more forethought, a bottle of vinho verde would have been chilled and ready to provide a perfect mineral counterpoint. Without the benefit of such planning, a cheeky Mike's Hard Cranberry served the role well enough. Together, the crackers and Mike's, enjoyed with my equally worn-out husband, were exactly the home-based Happy Hour we didn't know that we desperately needed, no matter how much it had been wanted.

The full recipe for the cheesy pepper snacks can be found at the Hot Water Bath Facebook group. Come on over - we'd love to hear your favorite uses for pickled hot peppers, too. Do tell!

Maintaining My Amateur Status

2010-03-29T20:30:00.004-04:00

Despite the post of my Mid-Winter’s Lament a few weeks back, I didn’t until just this week really understand just how much of prior years’ canning we’d been using. Sure, the jars were piling up, but since I’m not one of those canning types who catalogs and indexes my output – which is strange, considering how much of a control freak I am in nearly every other aspect of my life – I don’t have any kind of metric or tracking tool against which to check our usage. If I don’t know that I made, say, 40 quarts of applesauce last fall and I don’t know that I just opened number 39, I have no way of knowing that I’d better slow down with the counting on having more around. Clearly, I’ve got what we business-minded types call a process gap, one that is only just now making itself known.

I opened the last jar of tomatillo salsa last night and nearly forewent adorning the dinner burritos because, hey, it was the last jar and you can’t just use that on anything. The aforementioned applesauce is actually long gone and the peaches are not far behind. For plain old tomatoes, I’m down to a few pints which, given the cold winter’s impact on domestic tomato production, I am treating as part of my 401(k). Blackberries? History. Brandied apples? No more. Preserved lemons? The way of the Dodo. Spiced honey? Holiday gifting took care of that one. I still have plain cherries, raspberry jam and one jar of tomato salsa. There’s also a jar of apple butter (which I don’t even like and cannot remember what possessed me to make it), a quarter pint of pickled jalapenos and ~~a few more half-pints of pickled mushrooms~~. That’s it, that’s all she wrote after years and years of canning activity.

Even if I don’t keep records of pantry inputs and outputs, it’s not hard to understand what happened. Life and stuff, that’s what happened. Leaving aside blights and weather and the price of whatnot, my rate of canning slowed as the children grew and developed lives of their own at the same time as my professional life ramped up a bit. Since I am disinclined to use my small amounts of leisure grocery shopping for basics (shopping for party food or stuff to put into jars is completely different, although I don’t do much of either for other reasons), well, here we are.

Since we have, quite literally, been dining on past years’ productivity and industriousness, if I am ever again to enjoy meal-related leisure I need to get back to work, canning-wise. True planning is difficult to do this far in advance because we never know how weather, bugs and diseases will affect crop production. It's all well and good to commit oneself to 50 pints of peach ketchup but no bets should be made until the crop is in hand, so to speak.

It wouldn't do at all to set your heart on the peaches only to find out that, this year, you're more gifted in the hot pepper area. Better instead to focus on ideas - maybe you could use more jam or sandwich enhancers or fruits suitable for side dishes. Focusing on concepts allows you to bop and weave with your canning - you'll get your jam, but maybe it'll be blackberry instead of strawberry. Pickles might end up as green cherry tomatoes rather than hamburger dills. See what I mean? Bop and weave right around whatever the garden, the weather or your mood throws at the affair. For my part, I'm focusing on finished items rather than ingredients - salsas over plain tomatoes, brandied fruits over plain berries, for example, things I can use more or less as-is without further massaging after the jar is open.

We'll see. It's clear that I need to do something in the way of planning and this is pretty much as far as I'm willing to go. I don't know what I'll put on the pantry shelves this year, but I do know it'll be something great.

Ludite No More - See Hot Water Bath on Facebook

2010-03-10T19:42:00.002-05:00

Progress is a beautiful thing, no? A girl can struggle to keep up, what with all the horseless carriages around, and those fancy typing machines. Life moves so fast these days!

In keeping with this amazing time of ours, I decided to check out this Facebook thingamadoodle all the kids are raving about. I even made a Hot Water Bath group to record all our collective home food preservation fun.

Seriously, through. Susie J suggested nearly seven years ago that I start a canning-related message board, a recommendation that thrilled and terrified me in equal measures. Now that these crazy youths are willing to do nearly all the work for me at a time when home canning seems to be undergoing a modest renaissance (could it ever be as cool as knitting? Sewing? ), well, the time seems to be right.

I'll still be here, with canning, cooking, cocktails and documentation of my fascinating life's minutia. While I'm doing that, I hope you wander over there. See you?

A Piece of (Red) Cake

2010-02-20T18:04:00.013-05:00

Is there anything that you buy, convinced in the moment of purchase that it is 100% a needed and rational purchase, only to arrive home to discover that - damn and blast! - you already own, say, 8 or 10 identical specimens?

Brainiac had this thing a while ago when every time he left the house he came back with a set of queen size sheets. Because I am, myself, a somewhat eccentric person, I didn't say a word until one day I was putting a newly cleaned set away on top of the pile (we never got to the bottom) and the whole of the linen closet collapsed on my head. So I managed to get him to stop buying and only last year managed to divest us (thank goodness for the preschool rummage sale and its needed donations) of seven sets, leaving us with four - two flannel, two sheeting.

Somewhere in the middle of the sheets he had a thing for lamps and bought five in the space of six weeks or so. And I - because this is not a bash Brainiac post - once went through a very regrettable velour tunic phase, ending up with nearly a dozen. Then there's my completely irrational need to purchase each and every magazine featuring a lemon cake and, really, there are only so many recipes for lemon cake.

So. When it came time to produce the birthday cake to complement the Girl's Chinese Dragon-themed party, I was reasonably confident that I had enough of Wilton's red paste to execute the iconic dark red, black and gold design because red icing paste is one of those things that I buy whenever I find myself within a mile or two of a Michael's.

Turns out that I emptied a jar of paste - using the remaining 2/3 of an ounce - along with a drop of black getting to the red I envisioned in my head. A quick (albeit messy rinse) and the jar ended up in recycling, accompanied by my realization that I have never seen one of those jars completely used up. My first jars (lavender and daffodil in color), bought 14 years ago, are still good and quite full even after multiple uses. My mom has jars that are probably not much younger than I. So, you know, that's a lot of red.

(A note on the design: a colleague prepared for me a Chinese New Year-related design that he suggested would be considered good luck for a birthday cake. My attempt to reproduce it came to a bad end almost immediately and thus we ended up with something described by the one person in attendance who might have been relied upon to know the difference - a five year old boy - as "a tiny bit Chinese looking but not really." To this I smiled and asked if he'd like an extra big piece. He did.)

Later that weekend I prepared to make the cupcakes I promised to the Boy's class as part of their Valentine's Day celebration. I told him I'd make any kind of cupcake he desired as long as the recipe did not require a special shopping trip. After a week of snowbound togetherness, his sister's birthday party and holiday weekend company I was in no mood for special acquisition errands and set him down with a pile of cookbooks. Some time later he wandered into the family room, where I sat with a glass of wine and a novel involving oddly modern-minded Dukes and the maidens they love.

"Red velvet!" he declared, smiling and pointing to a recipe from a 50s era church cookbook. I looked, noticed the buttermilk requirement and shook my head. Allrecipes to the rescue with a perfectly doable, no-shopping required alternative, provided by the McCormick company.*

The result, after dipping well into a second jar of red paste:

Adorable, even pre-iced. And very delicious...and a bit like crack to the child who is generally deprived of food color of all types (I am a soft touch when it comes to the combination of holidays and Childhood Magic). I only needed 24 for the classroom, teachers and assorted helpers so was delighted to keep a few back, purely in the interests of research. Thinking to make a batch to take to work, I wasn't sure I really had enough red to pull it off. Turns out, I have nothing to worry about.

Nothing at all, with three jars of red left to plunder. Red velvet for everyone!

* As delightful as the folks at McCormick no doubt are, I feel compelled to mention that I did and do not actually possess any of their own brand of red food color. I used paste I already bought (see above) and used much more than the equivalent of the one ounce of liquid called for in the recipe.

Not So Much With the Sage

2010-02-06T18:51:00.007-05:00

So when weather forecasts started suggesting that this weekend may be a wee bit snowy in my part of the world, I thought that the time was right for a small canning project. Nothing like applesauce, God forbid, or peaches but rather something more on the order of, say, Lemon Sage Wine Mustard. Yes, a few jars of a little something that I could set aside for gifting, that would kill a little snow storm time and which required only that I hit the local grocery for one teeny thing since I had the rest on hand already. No problem! I figured I'd stop by Wegmans on my way home from work, pick up the sage and Look! Out! World! canning would ensue.

Right. Having grown up in Western New York, where blizzard planning is a minor religion, I forget that it's not really possible, the night before any amount of snow is expected in my adopted hometown, to go grab something quickly. I swear, thousands of people had nearly the same thought as I at exactly the same time I could not get near the place.

For some reason, one never hears of the last minute insulin pick-up, or batteries for the oxygen tank or whatever. No, it's always the bread and milk. I like to have these things on hand, too, but certainly can go 24-36 hours without. What gives? Whatever, I'm sure that entire dissertations have been written on the subject by greater minds than my own. In the end I I gave up in favor of a quick stop at the library for romance novels and thus have no sage.

We ended up seeing about 14 inches of snow over about sixteen hours (for those of you who use the metric system of measurement, this is about 98 gazillion metres). So, no mustard. Instead I spent the day reading (hi, Jill Shalvis!), drinking a serviceable wine and eating candy hearts. Not bad, all things considered, even if the canning didn't happen.

Tomorrow brings, assuming adequate road clean-up, a birthday party, a New Orleans Saints victory parade and accompanying game of some kind, and very likely more wine.

What a great weekend.

Mid-Winter Canning Lament

2010-01-26T07:46:00.002-05:00

canning season gone

spring seems so far away now

empty jars stack up

Sugarplum Fairy, Somewhat Late

2010-01-08T18:42:00.008-05:00

Some months ago I received a lovely e-mail from a women named Molly who said she wanted very much to send me some POM Wonderful pomegranate juice. Just because. I shrugged my shoulders, thought "why not" and replied that she was certainly welcome to do so - I adore pomegranates and their juice alike - and said that she should not engage in any breath holding regarding posts because 1) am pretty lazy about posting obligations, perceived or actual and 2) I was as likely to make jelly or pour the juice over a turkey or somesuch before I did anything as straightforward as actually drink it. She wrote that she thought that was just fine and several days later I took delivery of a box of these.*

Isn't that just the cutest?

Pomegranate jelly was among the first of my canning experiments way back in the distant mists of 2003. I recall it as successful, although I ended up with way more jelly than I could have used at the time. These days I'm sure that I could make better use of the output and decided to, with the gift of the juice, revisit the project.

Making jelly from juice is really the only method I'm willing to tolerate. I simply do not have time to mess with crushing and draining fruit, worry about clarity, measuring and blah blah blah. Not when it's possible to make a year's worth of jam in less than two hours or go the juice route with similar achievement. There are lots of good, wholesome, natural (and -ish) juices on the market these days and I don't feel any need to drain anything from anywhere into whatever else when it can be successfully avoided with nothing traded in exchange. (I have similar feelings about manual vs. automatic transmissions. There may be benefits to the former, but with the availability of the latter, why would you?)

So, juice is really where it's at, jelly-wise. Not that I actually made the jelly. No, friends, as 2009 wore on and on (and...) and I became enmeshed eight weeks we call The Holiday Season it became clear that no there would be no jelly making. So I looked to glazing the Christmas turkey (please, do not get me started on why there was no roast beef this year - telling the story now can come to no good) and felt little to no guilt about keeping those cute little bottles waiting. I knew the glaze would be great because pomegranate anything is always great and skipped merrily along having absolved myself of any and all jelly-making responsibilities. I started dreaming about POM reductions with shallot and thyme or maybe sparked with Sichuan pepper. There are zillions of possibilities when it comes to these things. Including drinking, as it turns out.

Flash forward to Christmas Eve. Brainiac had just bought an enormous bottle of vodka (and also one of rum, since he could not remember which went into egg nog and there was no way he was going back to the liquor store just as the merriment countdown began so best to stock up on everything possible while the moment was at hand, right?) and my sister-in-law was coming over with her son for our customary Chinese food and Christmas cookie dinner. The day had been a delightful one, full of wrapping and singing and baking. Feeling celebratory, I cast about for a specialish cocktail that we could enjoy together. I remembered the planned glaze. Turkey? What turkey? I had some POM and a tanker truck's worth of vodka. In the face of such festivity there is only one thing a girl can do to make judicious use of such resources.

Behold the official cocktail of 2009-2010 twelve days of Christmas (literally so, having finished up the last bottle sent by my good friend Molly just the 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany**). Each of the sweet little bottles held enough juice for three martini-ish cocktails which, with sugared rims and iced cranberry garnish, kept me and mine in tremendously good spirits right up until the last carols were sung on Epiphany.** Does this cocktail have a name yet? What about the Sugarplum?

Neither I nor the nice folks at POM couldn't have known back when that the contents of that little box would end up being such fun. It just goes to prove that, sometimes, the most obvious thing to do with juice is to just go ahead and drink it.

* See what I did there? Not for nothing do I make my living as a compliance professional in my non-blog life, engaged in keeping my employer aright of various federal laws, regulations, statutes and whims. In keeping with recent handwringing relating to a certain type of blogger (female, mom, etc.) preying on the trusting good natures of innocent Internet-goers everywhere, I have now informed you that I am in receipt of free stuff and you are able to adjust your expectations of my further statements on the juice accordingly. I'm so glad we had this chat.

** This is the day when observant Episcopalians everywhere drain the bottom of their glasses, look about, and say, "Can we please take these decorations down already?"

*** I swear, that cooper tray doesn't look nearly as tarnished in real life as it appears to be in that pic. No, really. I'm a terrible housekeeper in many ways but polish is one thing that I am on top of. I need me some Photoshop skills, it appears.

Lessons in Festive Project Management

2009-11-25T07:46:00.004-05:00

Shortly after the Boy was born on a now distant late-September morning, Brainiac startled me with the declaration that our Christmas tree would henceforth be displayed with a train chug-chug-chugging below. Effective immediately. I didn't grow up with trains around the tree and reached adulthood knowing about the concept in theory but never having given any thought to its application in reality. And then my train-appreciating husband became the father to a train-obsessed little boy (I'm pretty sure that this is where train-appreciating men come from in the first place) and so for the last nine Christmases there has been a train 'neath the tree, as directed.

The methodology in years past has been thus: slap down the track, futz with the engine, throw a bit of glittery fake snow about and call it good. Inevitably the uneven floor beneath the track or the glitter or an overzealous cat would interfere with the arrangement and tears would ensue. Then more futzing, trying to locate the little tube of smoke potion stuff, shimming the track, swearing about "today's alleged craftsmanship and my grandfather's engine never would have..." and yet more futzing and then inevitably disillusionment. A few more tears and Brainiac would declare the train off-limits and there it would sit, gathering resentment as much as dust.

Enough. A few weeks ago father and son were informed that my regrettable lack of oversight to the train process is coming to an end and I am ready to take up a position on the side of attractive as well as functional Christmas railroad operations. Not that I have any overblown expectations of museum-quality displays or the type of thing you get when grown men spend too much time in their parent's basements. No, not at all. My thoughts are merely that if we apply a few standard project lifecycle concepts to the affair we'll end up with something to make everyone happy - a working, touchable, seasonally-appropriate, attractive little show of Yuletide tradition. If, along the way, I ended up with some days' worth of teachable moments, so much the better. Taking a page from my workaday world, I've appointed the Boy as project manager (I, of course, am Management) and given him a brief training on Mandatory Project Activities as they pertain to the Christmas train:

I'll post the results as the work is completed, along with the hoped-for denouement of a lovely, functional Christmas train. Stay tuned, world.

Drink Pretty Creature

2009-11-12T20:50:00.004-05:00

Like many couples, Brainiac and enjoy the occasional evening out sans offspring. Happy hour, with its drink specials and snacky bites, is a particular favorite and we are quite devoted to 25-cent wing nights. Yes, it's true - I of the homemade pickles and organic peach jam can be bought at the low, low cost of a glass of sauvignon blanc and a plate of extra-hot Buffalo wings. I'd be hard pressed to even pretend shame so let's not bother.

Anyway, our recent cocktail culture habits have given rise to a new obsession: bar snacks. In case you lead a completely upstanding life and are unaware, it's not uncommon for bars to put out little bowls of this or that nibble, a salty lagniappe designed to encourage the purchase of yet another refreshing adult beverage. Alert drinkers might notice pretzels or nuts or the like and, in the best establishments, these are not stale (I sometimes suspect the purchase of vast warehouses of, say, bagel chips and have believed on occasion that a snack dating to Ronald Reagan's first term in office is being thrust in my direction. This practice must be discouraged by taking one's custom elsewhere. Life is too short, friends.)

Even when the bar snacks are up to code, we may not be heading out as often as we'd like (see also: the new frugality), preferring to stay in and have pals in for a drink and a bite. The drinks part is easy because, honestly, people just aren't that picky no matter what they claim to the contrary but when it comes to the accompaniments, standards must be kept. The ideal bar snack should 1) be able to be prepared ahead, 2) be served without need of cutlery or, heck, even a napkin, 3) enhance the taste of a wide variety of drinksies and 4) taste great. Hitting all four points is harder than you might expect but by gosh I try.

As I type I'm roasting chick peas seasoned with cayenne, adobo, black pepper and chili powder. The smell is fantastic but early taste tests are not promising. I remain convinced that the method will work, however. Open cans, drain and dry the chick peas, spread in a sprayed, rimmed cookie sheet and roast away at 450 degrees, having sprinkled very generously with whatever flavor seems like it might work. Next try: garam masala and amchuur powder.

I've got a cocktail bug for okra, too. Sliced and dry roasted with similarly prepared hot peppers...I don't know. In my mind it's crispy and blisteringly spiced and completely absent the okra slime factor. Maybe covered in cornmeal? I don't want to mess with frying and being stuck in the kitchen, though, not when I'm supposed to be perched perkily on an ottoman listening to my friend J. hold forth about her very disastrous, painful, and hysterically funny honeymoon (it's o.k., they're still married).

One of my favorite restaurants here nearby the homestead pretty much serves only meat. I know, its insane. Great, though, and I refuse to bend my mind toward even possibly thinking otherwise. This place serves bacon as an appetizer, and it is awesome - thick cut and slow roasted and just as full of umami as you could want. Another restaurant I enjoy sells house-cut bacon cured to order and I might see my way clear to trying to replicate such a snack at home. I've seen variations of brown-sugar bacon or bacon wrapped around whatnot but I think when it's all said and done, the sugar and the whatnots (scallops, artichoke hearts, water chestnuts) are really just excuses to eat bacon and wherever possible I advocate for the elimination of excuses. This, I feel, has promise as a drinks go-along.

Finally, I've also been messing around with papdum, which have the great advantage of being very quick to prepare even though you must fry them. They're so fast that you can cook up an enormous tower of papdum - I like the black pepper and chili varieties - and still have time wipe the counter and change your shirt before the doorbell rings. They stay crispy and are as whispy as angel's breath even has they pack a huge flavorful punch. You can serve them with chutneys but it's not necessary.

None of these snacks costs much - less than a dollar per snacker for very generous portions - or requires much in the way of effort, but all add so much to the experience of sitting and enjoying a laugh with good pals. At the very least you will have spared your friends yet another bowl of chips and salsa. Or, goodness forbid, Reagan-era bagel chips.

Old and Full of Days

2009-11-06T21:06:00.004-05:00

I am tired. Like, seriously tired. I could point to any number of reasons why this is so, but I think I'll bump up the most pleasant right to the top of the list: I am tired because I am having too much darn fun. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. To the rest of the possible reasons for my tiredness (work, stress, money, health, diet, schedule, etc., etc., etc.), thank you for your application but the position has already been filled.

Looking at the calendar I can see not a single moment from now until well after New Year's Day when I cannot tell you right now where I will be and what I'll be doing, more or less. I don't mind this terribly much. Surprises and spontaneity are increasingly unpleasant experiences and I am pleased to be able to look ahead a few weeks and know that I need a box of Legos, a rubber frog, pink glitter, a roasted hunk o' beef, a blue t-shirt, a bottle of chocolate stout, or a football-themed sheet cake, and also precisely on which days these are true. Predictability is the order of the day.

With that in mind, the advanced date reminds me that it's time for my annual rant on gift-giving, homemade-edness and celebrations. Or, we can skip it and go for the following instead, my favorite sources and resources for holiday crafting and gifting fun (please note this SPOILER ALERT in the event that you are related and/or are in a gift giving relationship with me):

- Sew Mama Sew has launched its annual Handmade Holidays series of tutorials gathered from all corners of the web. Wonderful inspiration for homemade gifts for nearly any interest or need of which you can think and for just about any skill level. Don't forget to peruse the archives of previous years' series. My nieces and nephews are (probably; see also having lots of fun and near miss on complaining about the calendar) receiving keyrings made of fabric tied (ha!) to their interests and personalities, a project posted two years ago, I think. I'd like to make them the "Don't Get Out of Bed" pants from this year's collection, but I don't think my skills are up to it (yet).

- I am also making up a number of jars of Cowgirl Cookies, except mine won't be Cowgirl Cookies. Follow? What I mean is that I'm making Buffalo Sabres cookies (blue and yellow candies), Dalmatian cookies (black and white candies), UB Bulls cookies (blue and white candies) and so on. That I have a brand spanking new Wegmans grocery at hand, what with their 99 cent 5-lb. bags of flour and bulk candy section makes this fun, easy and inexpensive. I cannot WAIT for my Sabres-obsessed nephew to open his cookie jar and start bugging my sister to bake 'em up right away. That's the kind of aunt I am.

- I have rediscovered ShrinkyDinks, a craft of my childhood. They're back! Who knew? Well, my five-year old knew and now announces with great regularity that she'd like to "shrink some dinks". For holiday gift giving of the aforementioned cookie mixes or jams or spiced honey or dipping sauce, I'll be making little Shrinky Dink tags that can then be saved or put on a tree or whatever. A small tangible reminder of the consumable gift, you know? A search through Microsoft Powerpoint or via Google Images for whatever key word one seeks (Buffalo Sabres, Dumpling, or Honey, for example) will likely yield an embarrassment of traceable riches for coloring and subsequent shrinking (remember, this method is NOT for commercial application, let's not take food off of designers' plates or run regrettably afoul of licensing laws, yes?). I'm no artist and if my tags work out o.k., I'll post some pictures.*

- For your baking pleasure, please see my friend Susie J at Christmas Baking. Every year I say it but it bears repeating: the gingerbread recipe is super-plus fantastic and should all the seasonal merriment makes you sleepy you could do worse than whip up a batch of mokka in response.

- If, like me, you need a gift-giving back up plan and you'd rather it didn't involve traffic, lines, or, heck, even bothering to dress I recommend Etsy and Artfire. I bought a number of gifts from Etsy last year (and in the time since) and have been pleased with each and every one. It can be hard to find what you need or want, and judicious application of key words goes a long way.

- Finally, don't forget YouTube as a source for wildly inventive tutorials on everything from knitting to making candy wreaths to gingerbread house hacks. Expanding my use of the site from nostalgic explorations of both teen-dream and more recent crushes (!) I can profess a legit educational application the type of which I'd heard about but not quite endorsed. I may set my children to work making smaller candy wreaths for their teachers (or at least as much of the wreaths as they will before a ravenous desire for the candy supplies and/or more complaining than I am willing to tolerate set in).

This weekend is the elementary school fund raising auction. Brainiac is feeling very competitive that our contribution of a Scotch-and-Cigar basket (designed to tempt the men away from the spa outings and girls-night-out packages) raises lots of money. For my part, I'm just looking forward to the first event of the rest of the year. With wine.

* Regular readers know better than to count on this. I'm always promising pictures and rarely deliver. Sorry.

Take Note

2009-10-24T20:57:00.003-04:00

Take one youth football season (with it's thrice weekly practices and twice weekly games) and throw in with it a long-gestated corporate acquisition the scale of which will haunt me for years, four weeks of some kind of odd, exhausting respiratory illness for three-quarters of the domicile's inhabitants, and the further destructive machinations of another company that I never really did like all that much and what you get is a home cook that just hasn't been feeling it.

My name is Marsha (hello, Marsha) and my kids are eating an awful lot of hot dogs. Sure, they're local, nitrate-free hoity-toity dogs but that only gets you so far when they're on the menu as much as has been recently. Life hasn't been so terribly bad, I don't think, after all it's not as if they haven't been treated to a (swanky)PB&(homemade)J now and then. On bread that has 4 grams of fiber per slice! So there is that. (This is just between us, right?)

In the last day or so something seems to have snapped loose and Brainiac found me last night preparing a shopping list while sitting on the sofa and nearly buried in cookbooks. Some (Bistro Cooking and and the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook) were old friends, some (Make it Fast, Cook it Slow and Modern Spice) were newer favorites. For some reason it seemed terribly important to immerse myself in print rather than bytes for, although I considered running to Epicurious or All Recipes, I couldn't quite drum up the interest in what seemed at the time to be a very sterile, almost transactional, activity. I wanted to hold those books, cross-reference, sticky-mark, note the messages I've left to my future self reminding me to up the borage or leave out the tamarind or cook for ten minutes longer than specified or whatever.

I emerged two or three hours later filled with plans for, well, not hot dogs. Pho! Agrodolce! Amanda Hesser's Pasta with Yogurt! Rice and beans! (Yes, really.) Like the cookbooks that inspired them, so of the dishes on the list are old reliables to which I'm returning after a long break while others will be new adventures. The family is always a little suspicious when I start trying to shake things up (remind me to tell you about my very project-managed midlife crisis some time). As we shopped today and the kids tripped over each other to help pull ingredients off shelves, I talked about each and what we would do with it - the red curry and the walnut oil and the ginger all have a story to tell - and they took my ideas and my list and my recipes and threw back at me their own. Can we make a focaccia or maybe a socca? What about the dolmades? Can we make our own instead of buying from the "tapas bar"?

It looks like there is, indeed, life after hot dogs (and PB&Js).

From the Back of Beyond

2009-09-05T20:35:00.005-04:00

I admit that this doesn't look really that great. Tastes good, though, and that's pretty much what we're about Chez Hot Water Bath. These are - or will be - marinated mushrooms (sort of) à la Edon Waycott in Preserving the Taste. I tend not to add the amount of herbs Ms. Waycott recommends, preferring a more basic, and hence flexible, pickle. The idea is the same, though, and I highly recommend you get your hands on the book and mix up a batch as soon as possible. Since I'm the only person in my house who will consent to eat mushrooms of any kind for any reason (although they do occasionally eat them without their consent - I have excellent knife skills*) eight or ten half-pint jars will serve me well for the winter as long as have the willpower to refrain from opening one until at least Thanksgiving (that's the end of November for the non-U.S. among us - Hi Uzbekistan!).

The Philadelphia Inquirer recently ran one of what I've come to think of as OHMIGOSH! It's still possible to can at home! articles. I am greatly amused by the breathless tone of these pieces but cannot stop myself from reading. This one is better than most and I recommend a perusal if you've got the time. For one thing, it contains practical advise and recipes. For another, the author manages to avoid reaching for the we're-so-hip-and-retro paintbrush.

This is a holiday weekend here in the U.S., three days when we're to be honoring and thinking about the laborers who sweated and toiled in the building of the nation. Many of us celebrate by heading to the beach or the mountains or staying home with barbecue tongs in hand. For my part, I'm looking at some raspberries that are fairly crying out to be made into jam. It may not be quite what the originators of the observance had in mind, but I promise that I'll be sweating and toiling in its making.

It's good to be back. For the record, bloggy friends, AppleCare was spectacular, if a bit disorganized, in the replacing of our damaged keyboard. Would that I could place a few non-computer issues on their capable shoulders.

* There are entire books revolving around how to hide this or that dreaded ingredient in somesuch more easily acceptable dish. Generally speaking, I don't love the idea of, say, spinach puree in my brownies. That said, there are certain recipes that everyone in this house loves - bigos, for one, and my vegetarian Bolognese sauce - but would fall completely flat without a good healthy half-pound or so of mushrooms. I am unrepentant on this point.

Jezebel Cannerbel

2009-08-13T17:30:00.002-04:00

Online mag Jezebel published a first-person essay on canning today, prompting a very long and hugely entertaining comments thread. It's hard to say where readers are coming down on canning, pro or con, after the author's unequivocal stance of anti-.

Go, read, enjoy. Then come back and share your thoughts. The most thrilling aspect of the discussion to me is that so many people had experiences to relate - either they were intimately involved in a canning project or have known and loved others who were. And, truthfully, although the stories of canning-gone-wrong made me cringe a bit (I feel a certain amount of pressure to relate only success stories but goodness knows I hear of/experience my share of failures) they're mostly pretty funny. I wonder if I'd ever gone through with the ill-conceived Orangina project if I'd make someone laugh as hard as I have reading some of these. It's almost worth trying again to find out.

Not Tonight Dear

2009-08-10T21:07:00.002-04:00

All weekend I mulled a new post, a kind of What I Did Over Summer Vacation, wherein I planned to detail this year's pickled mushrooms (splendid), the sweet cherries (ten pints of pure sunshine) and perhaps do a little mourning over my tomatoes, newly beset by blight as they are.*

Instead I am indulging in a fit of crankiness brought on by a short but spectacular storm that has left us with sub-optimal media and internet conditions and which came on the heals of a plumbing challenge (read: leak from upstairs into the downstairs and all over my desk) which left the one totally reliable computer with a keyboard that no longer recognizes commas, the numbers 1, 4, and 7 or the letter K. Tomatoes aren't the only things blighted around here.

So. Will return.

* The blight situation brings into stark relief a point I've made a time or two about canning's value proposition. If I have to purchase tomatoes for preserving when commercial options are available for around a dollar a can, what should I consider to be a break even? Or should I even care when by purchasing I've supported a local farmer, giving her the means by which to combat the blight and make our 'hood safe for nightshades once again? But then if I add in the energy costs and lids and time and...whatever. I'll probably buy at least some tomatoes to make the less plain items - your salsas, your roasted veggie sauces, and so on - and buy my regular old diced specimens (the price of which seems likely to be somewhat more than a dollar darn tootin' soon) at the grocery. With the decision at hand for many of us, I'll ask you to be honest about the costs and rewards...and not to forget to factor in your own enjoyment. Surely it is worth something, yes?

Carrots, Green Beans and Peas, oh my!

2009-07-27T09:24:00.002-04:00

It's that time of year again, friends, when I take a break from kitchen and kettle to issue a public service announcement concerning the hot water bath processing of (in order of the number of questions I receive about them) carrots, green beans and peas.

Ready? There is no safe, recommended water bath processing time for non-pickled carrots, green beans or peas (and other non-acidic garden vegetables). If you are looking to can regular old plain veggies - a fine and noble activity - you're going to want a pressure canner and the recommendations of the good folks at the USDA. Pickled vegetables are another matter entirely and you can safely go about putting up quart after quart of dilly beans or pickled carrot coins for as long as your vinegar supply holds out.

For now I'm concentrating on pickling mushrooms and avoiding the siren call of raspberry jam. What's in your water bath these days?

Summer In the Kitchen (or Not)

2009-06-21T21:27:00.004-04:00

Laurie Colwin related in her delightful cooking memoir Home Cooking the story of a friend who wondered about the herald-of-spring quality in the picnic staged by students at the seminary across the street from Colwin's apartment. "What is it about Episcopalians," the friend asked. "Is it their genes to barbecue?"

I think that when the friend in the story said barbecue she meant grill, although I cannot say for sure because I knew neither party to the conversation. The key to understanding what she meant, I suppose, is knowing whether or not the noun or verb form of barbecue was meant. Given the context, this Episcopalian is going with the verb and is very happy to do so. Grilling may not be in my genes but it's certainly among my preferences for getting good food on the table with a minimum of fuss, a maximum of flavor, avoidance of burgers and dogs where possible, and leaving ample time to pursue some of the other great joys of summer (swimming, gardening, sitting on the back porch watching fireflies, and - shocker! - canning).

In the warmer months, I rely upon three tools (a grill basket, a small cookie sheet that was perhaps meant for a toaster oven, and a set of skewers), a selection of condiments (if you're wondering what on earth made you concoct a batch of jerk sauce now you know) and two bread products (8 inch flour tortillas and garlic bread). From this modest list of necessities, great things can be achieved.

The basket can hold diced potatoes or cauliflower spears or mushrooms or whatever. Sprinkled with a bit of olive oil and seasoned with salt, pepper and/or some of that Adobo spice stuff (the bitter orange is really great) and plunked right on the grill, you've got a side dish fit for all comers. The skewers make short work of cooking any combination of meats/fish or veggies, all marinated overnight in Chiavetta's Italian Dressing or the jerk sauce (or even the Hot and Sweet Dipping Sauce). Thread 'em up and put them right next to the basket. They'll cook in minutes in a well-heated grill.

The teeny cookie sheet holds more fragile veggies - zucchini ribbons, say, or maybe red onion strings - salted and peppered and sprinkled with a spare amount of red wine vinegar (or that cheapie balsamic stuff in the green bottle). That, too, can go right on the grill. As for the bread, wrapped in foil (or not), either tortillas or garlic bread will warm sufficiently within minutes.

And that's dinner, prepared and served in roughly 40 minutes, with little cleanup in terms of pots and pans (the foil, once cooled, can be rinsed and used again and again and...). Salsa or steak sauce (Helen Witty has a recipe I've been meaning to try) are nice, as is a bit of yogurt with mango pickle or diced hot peppers. If I've got some good fruit, I might add a bowl or maybe a plate of sliced tomatoes and cheese for company, but these are frills and not at all necessary. A glass of wine, however, improves even this wonderful meal immeasurably.

When the dishes are cleared away and the minor post-dinner cleaning chores are done, it's no small gift have time to spare, something that I suspect even the grilling-suspicious Laurie Colwin and her friend would understand.

The Reason For It All...

2009-06-13T18:42:00.008-04:00

...or at least most of the reason for most of it all.

We had these pictures taken last fall to capture what seemed to be an almost magical time. The children were in that wonderful in-between state of needing and independence, not so old as to want to shrug away from publicly-offered hugs and not so young as to require constant and exhausting vigilance. Despite my personal fondness for near countless throngs in the next generation I am not exactly comfortable with actual babies (mine included, regrettably). I do toddlers really well, though, and preschoolers and I get along famously.

Now that we're halfway through the Boy's elementary school experience and the Girl has been promoted from pre-K, rendering my preschool parent days well behind me, I am almost eager for the next era. I hope that in my excitement I don't forget to remember this time when it seemed we'd be this way forever.

Not a NY Times Review Site

2009-06-06T17:36:00.007-04:00

So, yes, that canning article was pretty interesting, no? I loved the inclusion of Edon Waycott, the woman who acted as my canning gateway drug so many years ago (and who, honestly, covered the same territory as the piece's focus but better and first) and the mention of community-based preserving co-ops. Lovely! And, like Ace Commenter Catherine I appreciated the nod to resisting the temptation to profile home canning as the next big retro craze.

I did chafe at the bit about canning being a "quasi-political act" if only because there is little more polarizing in our world than politics and even people who share wide swaths of common ground fall out all too easily when politics are brought into the act. You like to make jam, your neighbor also likes to make jam and although you may make it for different, unfathomable-to-each-other reasons (perhaps you're a locavore while he's feverishly preparing for the zombie apocalypse, say) make it together anyway. You might find lots of stuff will taste better as a result.

In other New York Times news, I was fascinated by a recent Op-Ed concerning Michelle Obama's off-the-cuff remarks that, now living in the White House, she doesn't miss cooking. Now, I adore the piece's author, Amanda Hesser, and have gone to great lengths to defend her whenever the opportunity arises (you'd may be surprised how often this actually happens, it's strange the lightening she attracts). But! I think she's off base on this one.

Not that she didn't touch on the right notes. Frugality, health, self-reliance all get shout outs, and rightly so. And I've said often enough (here and here and here and here) that I bemoan the current state of family cooking and wish more kids could be lured into the kitchen, of which the happy byproduct would be less of a burden (yes, Amanda, even for someone who loves to cook the process can be a chore) for the one person who usually finds herself with the job. (For the record, Michelle Obama and I both have two children, full-time jobs - although I'm willing to cop to the fact that hers is a wee bit more demanding than mine - and husbands whose work takes them out of the house more often than not. There the comparison of our lives breaks down - I rarely travel, I have near complete privacy and I seldom am held up as a role model of anything but, still, if someone offered me a highly trained chef to "help" on a daily basis I would require less than a heartbeat to accept. And I really like cooking.)

I don't think this is really Michelle Obama's fight. As much as I share the desire for a very charismatic roll model showing families the way back into the kitchen together, I don't think the solution is to tsk-tsk women who admit that it's just not their thing. Moreover, reading that Obama's well-documented toned arms somehow prepare her for whisking duty leaves me with the same faint queasy feeling I get whenever I hear someone demand of my very tall brother-in-law why he never played basketball. Poor form, that.

And? I'm uncomfortable with the idea that there is one way to be First Lady. Is it really so hard to work with the idea that First Ladies, just like us regular, er, ladies will come with some variety?

Finally, and on a completely different topic, I've been for some time mulling a post about my enduring but conflicted love for All Recipes. Enduring because I almost always find a good starting point for whatever it is I've got a notion to make. From flourless chocolate cake to fish tacos, All Recipes has never let me down. Conflicted because, my word, is there any other site out there which has user reviews so consistently useless (if entertaining)?

Turns out I don't have to write that post because the New York Times did it a little over two years ago,making all the points I'd make if I were going to write about it, which I nearly did but now won't. Go read the article instead. Very entertaining.

No Quote From Me?

2009-05-27T06:55:00.002-04:00

The New York Times has an article about canning today. I haven't read it yet (making breakfast, getting dressed, etc.) but will. Do the same and come back to tell me what you thought?

Not Too Far From the Tree

2009-05-17T12:50:00.004-04:00

Yesterday when the Boy asked, after spying a cello carton of basil, if we could make a pesto for lunch I was tempted to demur. “Basil’s not in season here yet,” I might have said. “This carton came all the way from California.” Or maybe I could have appealed to the his inclination to be more frugal than I with “You know, we could buy two whole basil starts for the same price. Can you wait until July for your pesto?”

Fortunately, good sense carried the day and I recognized that that my son, bless his heart, 1) saw and recognized basil in a container that did not actually say basil, 2) remembered that basil is a key component in a traditional pesto and 3) did not ask me to make him pesto for lunch but rather asked if we could make it together and 4) unlike many of his pals, will actually eat something that doesn’t actually look all that great (green + slimy is so attractive to eight year old boys in so many ways but why not in the form of food?). After only a moment’s prevarication, I decided that these points ought to be rewarded. We bought the basil.

His job: everything. He stemmed, rinsed and dried the greens, shredded the cheese and figured out proportions of nuts, garlic, oil, salt and pepper, grinding and tasting his way to a rather nice sauce.

A mom could get used to this. And if it's true what some guy in the New York Times said about pesto maybe being a wee bit less than au courant, I suggest humbly that he run out at the earliest opportunity to find himself an unjaded eight year old for whom pesto is less a cultural touchstone and more just a delicious lunch he can make (mostly) by himself.

2009-04-26T20:34:00.002-04:00

I've just sung the last song of our increasingly elaborate bedtime ritual and have used my most lovingly stern voice to remind my cherubs of our shared interests in their staying in bed for the night. With that, a glass of wine and a bit of surfing I'll end my own day, a tiring (if pleasant) one that as capped off an amazingly exhausting five day stretch.

If there are any words that are beginning to terrorize me more than, say, anything that the news can drum up, they would have to be preschool rummage sale. Held in the church with which the school is affiliated, the annual sale is an epic event demanding superhuman effort on the part of half a dozen volunteers and the vast inconveniencing of an additional score. Moving a couple hundred chairs, a grand piano, bell tables and assorted altar furniture in and out of the worship space and in between holding court as several hundred shoppers poked, picked and peaked around the thousands of donated items for sale which had been sorted and tagged during the preceding five nights, well, it's enough to tire a girl out. And make her sore in all kinds of not-usually so used places.

The sale was successful so the tiredness is abundantly worthwhile. Our scholarship fund is newly plumped and community bonds are strengthened so you'll hear no complaints from me. That I was able to score a brand new Sookie Stackhouse box set of the first seven Southern Vampire Mystery books for a single U.S. dollar is icing on the rummage cake.

There seems like there's a ton more I ought to share - the linen-ish skirt I've nearly finished sewing for myself, the daisy-bedecked sundress made for the Girl, recent cooking adventures with the kids (the Boy can now make pancakes more or less on his own, shocking me tremendously...if he can feed himself reasonably well, I am very nearly obsolete, yes?), my delight that strawberry season is upon us and my increasingly desperate search for a humdinger birthday present for Brainiac. For now, though, sleep. Lots and lots of sleep.

Go On, Make Me Happy

2009-04-01T21:19:00.002-04:00

The word "things" can be made to be so ugly. Especially in times such as ours when the notion of taking a shine to material goods is used as shorthand for those sorts of people who aren't as enlightened as we, those who haven't embraced the simple joys so much more appropriate to difficult times. (See also: my belief that people who want me to stop "coloring within the lines" really just want me to start coloring within their lines, or "why my acquisitive/religious/literary/residential/educational choices are more authentic and spiritually/economically/morally/environmentally/socially sound than yours".) Whatever. I don't much care. We've all got enough on our plates and surely enough to worry about without having to parse and/or footnote that which brings the joy, yes?

Today was a difficult day in the middle of a not-so-pleasant week in what just might turn out to be a year of notable disquiet. Do I dwell? No. Instead I visit my happy place, which is currently stocked with the following things:

1. OPI's "Baby It's Coal Outside"
2. The Hothouse Flowers
3. Pansies
4. Rose's Lime Juice
5. Pink glitter
6. The novels of Victoria Dahl, Jo Goodman and Sherry Thomas. Oh, and Georgette Heyer
7. Really thick ecru writing paper
8. Needlepoint pillows
9. Lemon oil
10. Rose Poivree
11. The Book of Common Prayer
12. Blackberry jam
13. Picking the first tomato
14. My monogram (MJW or MWJ in case you want to buy me something)
15. That I am the fifth generation to use "my" lusterware tea service
16. Filling Christmas stockings
17. Swimming laps
18. Folding laundry
19. That Nine West shoes fit me without having to try on
20. My friend Jen's taco dip
21. Pretty cocktail napkins
22. Almond paste
23. The way Brainiac and I hardly have to talk to have a conversation
24. Easter hats on little girls
25. My kids' love of crayons
26. Tea, iced or hot
27. My car's seat warmer
28. My old Laura Ashley catalogs
29. The picture of a German Shepherd that I drew in 7th grade
30. The idea of a brocade and velvet skirt I'd like to sew for myself

There. That's better. What's in your happy place?

Togetherness

2009-03-29T12:25:00.004-04:00

We're fixin' to take the pressure canner for a spin this weekend. It will be interesting doing a canning project with Brainiac. Not that he's not usually involved to some degree, if only to calmly listen while I complain about all the tomatoes or peppers or...but this time I want him pretty close by. An inaugural run of any new equipment that involves buttons, a power source, gauges or instruction manuals of any level of complexity is boundto have me too jittery to think clearly. His sciencey, rational demeanor will do be good this first time out.

To prepare I've concocted what looks in the fridge to be a lifetime supply of chicken broth. In reality it's probably less than a month's worth, since it and veggie broth are staples around here. I find store-bought broth to be perfectly acceptable but making my own appeals to my inner frugalista, that secret corner of my personality that freezes carrot peelings.

Yes, it's true. My method for broth making is simple: freeze chicken carcasses (we have a roasted chicken maybe every other month) and also freeze veggie peelings from carrots, onions and the like (including also celery tops, onion sprouts and garlic that's a bit past it's prime). So now you've got chicken(s) and an ever-filling container of veggies. Eventually the twain shall meet and you can 'em all in a pot with water and a couple peppercorns to make broth. Easy as pot pie.

In times recently gone by I'd freeze the broth. With the acquisition of the pressure canner we'll be able to keep the broth while also preserving precious freezer space for something else. Excellent.

Now, I realize that on the face of it, all this is kind of silly. Freezing already-cooked (chicken) or processed (veggies) stuff only to cook it into something else and then process it for storage when more broth than I could ever use is on offer at a perfectly nice store not five miles from me...well, yeah. Silly. That's not the point. Not my point, anyway (although I know it may well be the point for you) and I'm o.k. with that. I like not wasting perfectly good raw materials and knowing what's in the food on my shelves. Realistically, I can't do that for everything but where I can (ha! can? get it?), I will.

The Best Sauce

2009-03-16T20:09:00.004-04:00

If my kitchen smells a bit peculiar at the moment, it's only because I embracing a notion to be productive. The oven is packed with a peach-blueberry crisp, chocolate chip muffins and a pumpkin pie while the stove top entertains my largest stockpot simmering the makings for chicken broth (for pressure canning experiments) and a bit of roasted veggie pasta sauce. The aroma around here isn't bad, just strange.

Some of these will find their ways to friends' houses and others are meant for us here at home, but what almost all have in common is that they would not have been possible today had I not canned, frozen or otherwise stored the key ingredients months ago. I haven't been able to do any food shopping for almost three weeks and not for the first time am I thankful for spending the time I do stocking our pantry. Remind me of this, will you, when come late summer I complain about drowning in apples or tomatoes or whatever is vexing me at that moment?

The fruit crisp is our dinner party offering. I rashly promised to bring dessert without actually thinking about what I might produce. With the day upon me, I peered into cupboard and freezer until - a ha! - inspiration struck in the form of two bags of frozen blueberries to pair with a pint of canned peaches. A quick crumble on top and off we go. I love fruit crisps hot, warm or cold, with cream or without and will take almost any opportunity to share my devotion. If peach is good and blueberry is better, surely together they'll be fantastic, right? Let us hope.

The roasted veggie sauce is saving tomorrow's lunch. I've got some wagon wheel pasta on hand - my favorite for brown bagging because they don't have to be cut, twirled or slurped - but no commercial sauce. No problem. I pulled a pint of the roasted veggie sauce off the shelf, poured in a half a cup of leftover merlot and just like that, there's tomorrow's lunch.

These are just two examples of the sheer convenience of having a stock of homemade convenience foods. On other recent days I've opened salsa for snacks, pickles to brighten a plain meal, and diced tomatoes for dirty rice. Blackberry jam filled thumbprint cookies made to cheer a friend, while tomolives graced more than one martini glass. In nearly three weeks of what I had thought of as sub-optimal food procurement I've been astonished again and again by how little we actually needed and missed.

Even while I extol the virtues of home canning, though, I have to confess that it's true that similar benefits could be had with careful shopping for commercial goods. Still, I think we can't overlook the empowerment that taking more charge of one's food brings. I know the origin of every ingredient in every jar I opened, hugged the people that stood beside me filling them, pint after pint after pint.

This week the pantry associated with the local medical clinic put out a call for assistance, looking to fill their rapidly dwindling stocks. With three weeks of near-zero food-related expenditures thanks to decisions we made six or seven months ago, my family's mandate is abundantly clear.

What an extraordinary privilege.

Quiz Show

2009-03-09T22:14:00.002-04:00

Like many folks these days, Brainiac and I are trying to be more mindful in how we spend our increasingly limited discretionary cash. Some changes were a long time coming and we're grateful to have the kick in the pants to take care of them. Other fiscal adjustments are more nuanced and may not even look like much to the outside observer but are making quite an impact to us personally (I recently learned that I can buy four bottles of nail polish for the cost of one manicure! Laugh if you must, I will merely smile the smug smile of someone whose nails look fantastic at a fraction of the usual cost + a bottle of Seche Vite). For shorthand we might call these line items NO and MAYBE.

We have a third category, let's call it YES, in which we have, if anything, expanded our spending. You might think of it as covering anything which could be considered tool-like. Under this rather large umbrella we placed things like chain saw (although now unnecessary because Brainiac trashed picked and repaired one from a nearby posh 'hood's curb - can you say score?), printer ink, drying rack(s) and so on (I should point out that the YES list isn't really a license to spend, it's really more a wishlist of practical items for which we are willing to exchange actual money, although we hope the situation doesn't actually come to that). Anyway, last week I indulged my inner spendinista in a highly responsible way by purchasing an item off of the YES list. What did I buy? How about a quiz? I'll give you three hints. My purchase:

1) Relates to the, uh, theme of this here blog,

2) Requires me to read a gauge (Brainiac cracks up at this one), and

3) Enables me to can non-acidic foods like broths or plain green beans.

So what do you think I bought? Oh, here's a bonus fourth hint: It just might be more fun that all those bottles of nail polish.

Red Beans and Ricely Yours

2009-03-03T21:29:00.005-05:00

Lately I've noticed a steep uptick in the number of people brought to my little interwebby home with searches on things like "Dave Ramsey rice beans" or "beans and rice rice and beans" or even "ramsey bean rice do i have to" (yes, really). In the year and a half since I posted my thoughts on the subject of Mr. Ramsey's dietary recommendations the hits have been steady, if not numerous. A few a week, here and there, with the occasional e-mailed question of what, exactly, did I mean by paneer or how dare I compare the man to Martha Stewart. All very workaday. In the last month those weekly few have turned into a daily few dozen.

It's not hard to understand why. Some folks are getting serious about their personal debt load and are embracing Dave Ramsey's methods for coping with and eliminating it. Others are just trying to figure out how to put a decent meal on the table while using as few of their scarce dollars as possible. One doesn't have to be an, ahem, news analyst to make sense of their interest in Ramsey's anti-debt empire or his ever-so-catchy admonishment.

To the extent that my referrals are economic coalmine canaries (o.k., they aren't at all, but go with me, yes?) there's more that brings me pause. The same day that CNN.com posted an article about white-collar, educated, professional folks utilizing foodbanks in California I received two separate e-mails and perhaps half a dozen hits all asking essentially the same question: can home canning help me feed my family cheaply.

Leaving aside the many unpalatable issues brought to bear in the CNN.com article - and I believe there are many besides the regrettable fact that people are hungry - it, the e-mails and referrals all underscore a key point that I've made before (here and here and here) and which I am going to make again right now. Knowing how to cook, how to can and even the basics of shopping for food are not luxuries, they are shields against all manner of weapons. Choosing a steady diet of rice and beans for any reason can be a grand and noble thing, but better if one can do it in a way that doesn't feel like a punishment or, worse, a consequence for decisions made in meeting rooms in far away cities by people never encountered. If one knows how to cook, there is endless (frugal) variety and pleasure to be found in beans and rice. If one knows how to shop for ingredients and is able to use them, the household impact of ever-increasing costs for pop tarts or boxed soup mix or anything else might be diminished (although admittedly not eliminated - there are limits, after all).

The talking heads have been agog at their wondering what the economy might mean for family life. Might people entertain at home more? Throw less elaborate home parties for birthdays? Vacation closer to home, camping perhaps? I suppose any or all of this is possible (although I remember the early-90s recession-influenced fashion of flannel and tightwadery didn't last all that long, did it?) I'd like to throw another possibility out there.

Maybe we'll learn to cook. For real, like with cutting and mixing and applying heat and measuring. Maybe we'll learn to do it with our kids, filling their metaphorical toolbox with the skills they'll need to be not as vulnerable as their parents to the vagaries and whims of large corporations. Maybe we'll be more ant-like, shunning our internal grasshopper voices to pick fruit and make jam, even when the day returns that we don't have to. Maybe we'll do it because it's a good thing to learn to do with our families, working together side by side to feed ourselves and each other. Maybe.

And to answer the question, yes, it's possible that preserving food at home can contribute to a lower grocery bill. For all of you who asked, I hope you found what you're looking for in your search here. Stick around and we'll learn even more together. As with most things, cooking and canning are more fun with friends.

Spiced Honey, At Long Last

2009-02-23T20:38:00.014-05:00

Spiced honey falls under "not really thrifty, but cheaper than in a store" category of home food preserving. A frugal indulgence, if you will. One can pay a pretty penny for a very similar commercial product, but spicing and canning honey at home is so easy and it's such a perfect winter canning project that it would be a shame not to try it at least once.

There are those who believe that cloves and cinnamon sticks are the order of the day. Purists adhere to one or the other. I say go big or go home and load up on star anise. Beautiful, aromatic and delicious, star anise adds an ever-so-slightly licorice flavor to the honey alongside an indefinable what is that that lends the whole affair a decidedly mysterious bent.

I buy honey from a hobbyist-turned-microfarmer who lives a few miles down the road from me. If you can, try to find someone close by your neck of the woods from whom you can do the same. We're all a little spooked by the dying bees thing and, whatever the cause of the trouble, we'll all do well to help however we can. This does not mean that I believe you're disqualified from spiced honey if you can't locate a local provider. Not at all. File it under "trying" and carry on as best you can. This is supposed to be fun, not guilt-inducing.

So. You've got your honey, about 2 pounds of it, I'd say. All you need next is a bit of citrus juice, maybe a tablespoon, and some kind of spice. Lemon is canon, but I also like lime and what I've got tonight is a pink grapefruit (from my grandmother's tree! wheee! I love grapefruit) so that's what I'm using. For the spice, do what you will. You don't need a lot of it because you'll be infusing the flavor and don't have to include the spices themselves in the jar (unless you want to - the effect can be lovely).

Combine all your ingredients into a saucepan and warm over low-to-medium heat, stirring frequently. Keep on like this, tasting liberally, until you get something you like. Then jar according to the directions on the box, straining the spices out and leaving half an inch of head space, and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. If you have an odd amount that's too small to process, strain it into a clean jar and put it in the fridge. The honey will crystallize, but will be perfectly good for spooning into a beverage or spreading onto toast.

That's it. For maybe 15 minutes of hands-on time you've been rewarded with a few jars of pure sunshiney gold, not to mention a few tricks you can change up and switch around depending upon your mood the next time. And I can't imagine how there wouldn't be a next time.

I used half-pints tonight since I'm embracing honey-based selfishness with these and don't intend to share (but probably will anyway). For gifting I might go with quarter-pints (you know, those teeny tiny jam jars) and pair with some white tea or a loaf of really good white bread. If you've got a sick friend, a jar coupled with a small bottle of brandy and a new tea cup probably wouldn't go amiss. If you hang with unrepentant sweet mongers, then spoons are probably the best accompaniments.

But you didn't hear it from me.

Birdie Call

2009-02-19T19:29:00.001-05:00

For four mornings running I awoke to the sounds of birds singing and emerged from my bed with thoughts of spring and sunshine on my mind. What I actually discovered was...something else entirely. We are still mired in the grey and gloom so characteristic of this month and have also enjoyed a few freeze/thaw/rain cycles which have gifted us with significant mud to boot. Not exactly what those singing birds promised. Maybe I dreamed of them? It wouldn't be the first time my delusions came with aural manifestations.

Still. Spring may be some time away yet but a girl's got to plan. In odd moments I'll jot a recipe here, an idea for a new hot pepper garden there or a maybe a reminder to buy gingham for sundresses on the corner of an invoice. I've found myself daydreaming of blackberry picking while, say, in a meeting most definitely not about such things. Last summer I didn't have nearly as much fun as I might have and I am determined to right that old wrong. Bread will be baked! Flowers will be planted! That old annoying yew? The dying/dead one? Along the front walk? Will be removed!

Work will be nuts, of course, with the news that my employer, an enormous company, is being bought by an even bigger one. What will this mean? I have no idea. There are the usual family worries, well worn, plus a few new ones that I'd just as soon not visit us. But there they are nonetheless. There will be bills and deadlines and annoyances in spades - things that make it all too easy to retreat from personal plans and goals. I will have to work hard to remind myself that the sun still will come up regardless of my employment status, the birds (not imagined ones, at that) will sing no matter how many meetings on my calendar and that gingham sundresses for one's daughter don't exactly sew themselves even when the family is completely happy and hale. I will have to work to remember that the meetings and expenses and errands and sorrow will always be with us, in one form or another, and that it's my responsibility to give them no more due than absolutely required.

Easy promises to make, harder to keep. I'd better get started.

The March Hare

2009-02-16T07:57:00.007-05:00

I am not going to belabor how much I hate February. I refuse. I will only say that for a short month is has a heck of a long list of offenses to answer for. How does one month become so terrifically ambitious in the dismay and mayhem department? It boggles the mind.

Beyond the regular old economic news which, honestly, is like background noise at this point (futures? oil? jobs? it's all almost quaint) my own rather quotidian worries have been rather rapidly overtaken by events that, if made into a movie or a book, no one would ever believe. Typical of my incredible good fortune, these things don't happen to me, rather they happen around me, to those to whom I am to closest. I'd rather they didn't happen at all, of course, but I suppose that's an unrealizable request.

On Friday, when news of the crash of Flight 3407 started filtering into the news, friends and colleagues started saying things like, "Oh, I heard Buffalo and thought about your family but then realized that the town isn't that small What are the odds?" My response? You'd be surprised.

Clarence Center is a difficult place to describe to suburbanites accustomed to towns that run into one another in one unceasing flow of buildings and cars. Clarence Center abuts my hometown of Williamsville, New York, more or less. In between the towns there is a ruralish, sparsely-populated area and then you come to the hamlet of Clarence Center. Three, maybe four blocks long, there's a church, a coffee house, a gift shop, a bank and a firehouse. And an elementary school. The cross streets - the few of them there are - are almost entirely residential but for a contractor here or a day care center there. It's a short drive out of town into the horse, dairy and green bean farms. It's the kind of town people think about when they talk about those all-American places that Norman Rockwell might have painted.

It's surreal enough that a place I know so well, even after being away longer than I lived there as a child, was involved in something so awful and completely random and weird. The thing is, my sister lives in Clarence Center, about 100 yards from the single house that was destroyed. She now shows identification to a sheriff's deputy to return to her home after work or errands. She has described the smell in the air, one that promises to get worse before it gets better. My niece takes cover under the dining room table when a plane or helicopter is heard in the sky (just a few miles from the airport, this is not an infrequent event). The good men of the firehouse next door are doing their best to assist the federal departments that have descended, trying to do what they can before the next snow blows in mid-week.

My sister, and the town, are hurting. Survivor guilt is the talk of the day and veterans in the area speak knowingly of PTSD. There's little I can do but be as understanding as possible in that thoroughly insufficient way of someone who isn't there, hearing the crackles of the still-smoldering fire, who isn't organizing grief counseling for the many school kids who live on that block, who isn't wondering how to begin to talk about something so totally, horrifyingly random and from which there is no protection.

The Last of the Car Posts (I swear)

2009-01-27T21:44:00.005-05:00

So Brainiac has this new GPS thing. I wasn't exactly what you'd call supportive of the purchase but instead of arguing or getting all logicky with him ("But, honey, we don't actually go new places" or "But, honey, our own home can't even be found with the device so how much utility could it actually have?") I decided to just keep my mouth shut and let the poor man follow his geosynchronous bliss.

Shows what great ideas I have.

There is now a little black box perched on my car's dash. The kids have named the little black box Mrs. Ashi (yes, the box gets an honorific. me? I am almost always referred to as "she") and I am NOT allowed to speak over her clipped guidance. In case it's not clear, let me spell it out: Mrs. Ashi is allowed to speak her piece while I am routinely talked over and argued with. And! The Boy knows enough about maps and direction in general (plus, we do go to the same places over and over again) to know when I am not doing what Mrs. Ashi has instructed me to do and he is vocal in his dismay. It's humiliating. Of course, if I could get anywhere without being lost perhaps I wouldn't be in this situation.

It's not really my fault, though. I live in a place where, within just a few miles of my house, one can find the following roads: Valley, Old Valley, North Valley, Valley Hill, Valley Creek, Valley Forge, Old Valley Forge, South Valley, Valley Park and Orchard Valley. A little farther afield we can find even more variations on this theme (and, by the way, type "valley" enough and it stops looking right). How on earth is anyone supposed to have any directional sense in such an environment is completely beyond me.

The rest of the family is devoted to Mrs. Ashi even as I question her utility so I am trying to be welcoming. I suspect that if Mrs. Ashi were to develop opposable thumbs, an interest in marathon sessions of Shoots and Ladders and learned how to order a pizza I might be replaced altogether.

Automotive Ennui

2009-01-22T21:38:00.003-05:00

So, you remember the car that caught fire, right? Although the manufacturer took care of the situation and expressed great dismay for our plight, we thought perhaps we ought to consider a replacement vehicle. This isn't a decision made lightly, of course; besides very compelling macroeconomic concerns there is also the very simple matter of my consuming resentment of almost any amount of money spent on automotive requirements. I really, really, really hate parting with even the smallest sums on cars or their maintenance and this, you might understand, interferes somewhat with the car buying process. How it came to pass that I married a man who loves nothing more than to tinker on, shop for, or talk about cars is a mystery for the ages. It's probably true that we create many of our own challenges, don't you think?

I've been playing along with the whole new (to us) car idea because I take a pretty dim view of the whole catching-fire-while-driving thing. The dimness of the view shifts a bit when presented with the costs of automotive acquisition and I don't know where we'll end up with it. Since I first offered a tentative agreement that a new car would be a good idea Brainiac has probably visited every dealership within a 20 mile drive. To say he's excited is a gross misrepresentation and I feel a little bit the killjoy when I remind him that despite my consent I'm not that happy about it and I'll probably be a little miserable about the whole thing. For a while. Poor guy, but I can't fake this. You either feel the car thing or you don't, and I don't.

I especially didn't feel it when Brainiac called to tell me one day that he'd been in an accident with the other car on his way to work. Some guy tried to occupy the same space as he, it seems, and physics being what it is, they collided and now we've got the thread of totaling hanging over the car we had hoped to keep. It's really more than I can bear. One new car? With medication, therapy and a few bottles of wine I might see my way clear to becoming fully functional again someday.

Two new cars? Excuse me while I go to my Happy Place, if only virtually. I'd visit in person but I'm afraid I'd have to drive.

The Old Gray Mare

2009-01-14T20:59:00.008-05:00

I suppose by now you've come to the same conclusion as I. It's true, I'm the worst blogger ever. I make bloggy promises and walk away, drop philosophical anvils and scoot, post idly about plans for fun little themed series and pfft. I am, not to put too fine a point on it, not to be relied upon, blog-wise.

It wasn't always thus. Hot Water Bath has been around now for nearly seven years (that's, like, 49 in blog years) and my words here have been much of a journal as I've ever kept. It occurred to me recently, though, that part of the challenge to my ability to keep posting as I used to is precisely that the longevity is working against me. My life isn't the same as it was when I started but I keep trying to post about the same sorts of things as always. Clearly that idea is a non-starter.

So where does leave us? I don't know. Let's take a leaf from my workaday life and do a bit of an analytical exercise, shall we?

Marsha's Life
Year: 2002	Year: 2005	Year: 2009	Advantage
loves house	hates house	loves house	2009
town o.k.	town tiresome	town awesome	2009
no time to read	serious reading	vamps in lurve!	2009
canning = hobby	canning = duty	canning = diversionary	2009

See what I mean? I could go on: For a long time I believed that I could save the world by shopping at a farm market. Now it's more like, "eh, buy your kale and move along, lady, there's a line forming". I used to bake a lot more, but now I rely on a few standby items that I can make with my eyes closed, thereby freeing up time for polishing my nails (oh, how I love this new OPI color I scored on my birthday) or sitting on the back porch with Brainiac and sharing a cigar. My life has changed so it's only fitting that my blog should, too.

I need to consider things a little more before I go off and make tons of changes but I think I can safely say that things might be a wee bit different soon. I understand now that I, myself, am a whole lot different and I'm going to be dragging the blog alongside. Tally ho!

Not Exactly Speed Racer

2008-11-26T07:09:00.002-05:00

Item: The older car's been making a funny rattle which had been thought to be due to recent ridiculously sub-normal temperatures. Turns out? Water pump. Undriveable for now, part in transit, work to commence at some unspecified point in the near future.

Item: The newer car (newer being relative; it's a 2001 model year) started smoldering on the much-dreaded Route 202S last night. The summoned brother-in-law, a fireman, grinned while delivering the news, "Yep. Your car is burning." New oxygen sensors, at minimum, required. Work to commence at some unspecified point in the near future.

Consequences: Behind on laundry, dishes, errands, packing, wrapping, sewing and canning. Gift posts coming, and I mean it this time, after the holiday. For those of you in countries without a holiday this week (lots of referrals from Uzbekistan lately - hi Uzbekistan!) and have no idea of what I am speaking this means, more or less, that I'll start posting again on Sunday.

Until then, amuse yourself with cranberry chutney or making your own relish tray or otherwise having a splendid week. As for me, the kids and I are outta here. I have tons for which to be thankful and I may as well start now.

Blood Drive

2008-11-20T21:13:00.002-05:00

The spiced honey post is being delayed just a bit because a friend-related emergency has arisen which requires my complete attention and a small amount of time (which nonetheless interferes with canning ops). My friend is, I feel compelled to note, rational, mature, intelligent and even-keeled.

She also wants to see Twilight. Tonight. At midnight. Not alone.

When a friend needs me, who am I to turn away? Sure, we both have to parent and work tomorrow and we both have Saturdays that look terrifying on paper. But we both also like a little vampire lurve (she specifically with these characters, with which I have no experience) so why not? It's not like opportunities to recapture one's youth come 'round every day.

I haven't been to a movie theater since the first Harry Potter film which I think was, what?, 2001 or something? I scarcely know how to act in a theater anymore since they got indoor plumbing.

Wish me luck.

Eighteen with Twenty-Two Years Experience

2008-11-19T20:23:00.002-05:00

On December 31 - a mere 42 days from today - I will ~~celebrate~~ ~~observe~~ experience my 40th birthday. Despite my natural inclination to draw attention to myself and insist upon adoration and fealty from all who cross my path on that sacred day, I suspect that this year might be significantly quieter than past such events.

In my youth a New Year's Eve birthday was splendid. I never had to go to school on my birthday and friends were almost always home to attend an afternoon party. When I grew up enough for sleepovers, my friends' parents were only too delighted to send their darlings to my house clearing their own out for duration. In still later years I enjoyed a surfeit of entertainment options and always had a date (or two) at the ready to assist with whatever celebrations came my way. I rarely had to organize anything because the world (well, my world) was only too happy to thrust merriment upon me and cook up outrageous fun on my behalf. This delightful truth held until recent years.

These days I have only one date in the form of Brainiac, a wonderful man who'd really rather not bother with the whole thing at all and in the process throws the baby of my birthday out with the New Year's Eve bathwater. If we go anywhere we're the couple that bugs out around 11 p.m. so that he can be home safe and sound and in pajamas before counting down of any kind begins. If we stay home he's zonked well before Barry Manilow ever takes the stage.

Getting together with friends can also be tricky. Some have established traditions, spending the holiday with other friends or family or a set combination of both. Others travel, making a point to be somewhere besides cold and grey southeast Pennsylvania. Many of my friends have children and there simply are not enough babysitters to go around while a kid-friendly party does little to thrill those friends who don't share their daily lives with younger folk. What to do?

I've decided that I need an Official Birthday. You know, like Queen Elizabeth? She has a day for celebration - Trooping the Color? How fantastic is that? - entirely separate from the actual day on which she was born. I've long thought that if it's good (key word being "good") for Queen Elizabeth, it's good for me. So with that in mind, I need a day when 1) there is little chance of mass public drunkenness, thereby enticing Brainiac to activity, 2) the weather is likely to be good, 3) friends are inclined to be in town and available. Brainiac's birthday is in May and almost always coincides with the long Memorial Day weekend and my first thought was perhaps to tie my Official Birthday to Labor Day, thus book ending summer nicely. But darn near everyone we know locally takes off to the beach or the mountains for Labor Day, in clear violation of requirement number 3. So maybe the Saturday after Labor Day? Or perhaps the one before? Mid-October is good, too.

This is going to require some thought. Although I am not really sad about turning 40 or finding it particularly problematic, buying myself another nine or ten months before the event is, well, official is kind of nifty. I'll even make it easy by not demanding my very own parade.

Seeing Stars

2008-11-17T21:25:00.001-05:00

Although I posted that I'd be making the White Wine-Sage Mustard next, I've had so many e-mails looking for the spiced honey that I'm going to put that up this week and save the mustard for the the first week in December. I've actually been a little afraid of the honey idea - honey being so sticky and hard to control - and I'm glad that the interest is there to keep me on task. I'm going to make two kinds; one with cinnamon and clove and one with star anise. Both are insanely delicious, really not at all hard to make (stickiness aside) and wonderful to give (or not). Watch for the honey post by the end of the day Thursday.

In the meantime, I've been also trying to finish up some crafty gifts in time for my Thanksgiving trip to Buffalo. The kids and I are heading up for the long weekend and I'm very keen to be able to have all the presents wrapped and ready to go. I'm way more organized this year than in the last few and that makes all the difference between good intentions and actual gift production. Being organized! I'm amazed someone didn't think of it sooner.

We'll be arriving back from the trip up north on the first day of Advent and in the spirit of organization I'm putting together plans for the activities and projects that truly add to our observance and am being very bold about declining to participate in engagements that would diminish our enjoyment of the season. The short list so far includes a nice balance of private reflection and friendly togetherness with people I don't see nearly enough. I've decided this year not to have a big gingerbread house party - we've had a few shindigs this year and I don't think there's harm in skipping just this once (maybe I'll defer that energy to a 2009 Easter egg hunt?). Similarly, Brainiac and I have decided to forego work-related events, instead demonstrating collegiality and all-around fitness for continued employability by sharing the results of what I hope will be marathon and highly pleasurable cookie- and candy-making sessions.

Speaking of cookies, I'd be remiss if I my annual tradition of sending you all to Susie J.'s Christmas Baking site. The Advent Calendar alone will make you weep and Sue makes her own mixed peel for fruitcakes, an activity I wholly and enthusiastically endorse. When I last saw her during a run to Penzey's, I obtained her promise that the site is backed-up thoroughly because I would be lost without several of the recipes (despite being too lazy to actually write them down anywhere), specifically gingerbread, Albertle, Ausstecherle and mokka. In case she needs proof that no good deed goes unpunished, I may just invite myself to her house for a lesson in zimtsterne since I remain in total paralyzing fear of making them on my own.

You know, now that I think of it, zimtsterne and tea sweetened with cinnamon honey would make an excellent winter snack. The combination might be just the thing to bring into our respective offices to promote a little goodwill toward men, not to mention peace on Earth (or at least the Philadelphia suburbs).

Thai Hot and Sweet Dipping Sauce

2008-11-11T21:45:00.009-05:00

I found this recipe first online at the Fresh Preserving website and then again in the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving that Lauren Devine sent me a few months back. I was struck right away how perfect this sauce would be for the Homecanned Gift project - simple enough for beginners to follow easily while also being different enough from the usual jams and pickles to interest the more experienced among us.

With only five ingredients and requiring no long cooking time or chemical reaction for success, it's the perfect choice for making a quick, inexpensive and utterly unique and delicious gift at home. Making 10 half-pint jars took only 20 minutes of hands-on time. The longest part was waiting for the water bath to boil, a lull of which I took advantage by typing this post.

To make the sauce, you need:

Start by starting the water bath to boiling, simmering lids and rings and sterilizing your jars.

Combine the chopped garlic and salt in a glass or ceramic bowl and set aside. I chopped up a little more than a head of garlic to get a half a cup. I suppose you could use a garlic masher thingy or buy a jar of pre-chopped garlic as well.

In a stainless steel saucepan, bring the vinegar to a boil. For the love of Ball, don't put your face over the pot while you do this - boiling vinegar is not something you want to inhale. After the vinegar comes to a nice boil add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Lower the heat and allow to simmer for five minutes.

Remove the vinegar from heat and stir in both the garlic mixture and the pepper flakes, stir to combine.

Ladle the sauce into your hot, sterilized jars. Seal according to package instructions and process in a boiling hot water bath for 15 minutes.

When the processing is complete, remove the jars from the water bath (carefully!) and place them on a double thickness of dish cloth or tea towel to cool. Allow plenty of room for air to circulate and try not to disturb them for at least 12 hours. Try, too, to resist pressing the little button on the top of the lid to check for a seal. I know you'll want to, but try to avoid it.

And that's that. You now have 8 to 10 half-pint jars of Thai Hot and Sweet Dipping Sauce with which to bless a friend (or yourself - we eat a lot of steamed dumplings around here and I may need to make a second batch). Next time you can add a bit of lemon grass or galangal or ginger, but for now you've made something perfectly excellent and of which you hold your head up high. As for cost, assuming you'll get the same ten jars I did and pay similar prices I'd say you're looking at a little less than a dollar a jar (for jars and ingredients but not including energy costs for processing and cooking).

In a few weeks we'll talk about embellishing the jars for a nice presentation. This sauce doesn't require much in that regard - it has a lovely amber color and a fun snowglobe-like effect from the pepper flakes and garlic. It could be given exactly as is or, if you're feeling expansive and generous, bundled with a recipe and perhaps a dumpling press, which can be had for a couple dollars apiece.

Whatever you decide to do in the way of gifting, be proud that you have made something delicious, useful, frugal and beautiful. Happy holidays, indeed!

Next up: Lemon-Sage Wine Mustard. Yum!

My Dear Mr. Slater

2008-11-07T19:37:00.005-05:00

Earlier this year I went on a bit of a Nigel Slater glom, reading every one of his books I could access through my local library system. I can't remember how it started or if I had any particular goals in mind - I only recall feeling a little let down with his pedantic style and presentation and not getting whatever it had been I was expecting. Laconic nearly to the point of inducing slumber, Slater's writing betrays little of the passion he says he feels about food and cooking. I read and read trying to find a clue as to why he is so beloved and respected until in The Kitchen Diaries he made disparaging comments about home-canned items given as gifts. This, as you might well imagine, I feel is a deal breaker and an appalling position for one who claims to support micro producers and local foodways.

In my own small way I feel called upon to try to rebalance the scale in favor of homecanned fabulousness - especially for gifting and for hosting. What I wouldn't give to be offered a piece of poundcake glazed with homemade apricot jam this holiday season instead of a gooey oversweet whatsit from the freezer section. Or be able to open a jar of chutney to pair with whole grain crackers rather than heat up some pre-made pastry thing. Or, or, or... You, too? Then let's do something about it.

Over the next weeks I'll be making and posting about a variety of canned foodstuffs that are not only delicious but also easy to make and suitable projects for home canners from novice to expert. Any can be given as wonderful gifts on their own or matched with inexpensive additions or can be kept aside for those days when you'd like to have friends over* but aren't up to the task or expense of shopping. If you don't already have water-bath canning gear and want to play along check out this post and consider about spending some of your grocery budget on supplies (including half- or quarter-pint jars) - or chip in with a friend or borrow if it's your first time. My own canning kettle is in use throughout the year and I count the money it cost as among the best I've ever spent, repaid many times over in savings and enjoyment.

What shall we make? These are the ideas I have, but I am nothing if not flexible. If there's something you'd like to try, do let me know and we'll see what can be done. I'll start with the following:

For each of these projects I'll post the recipe, some pics and a few ideas to maximize its gifting potential. If you're inspired to try some canning on your own, I'll hope you'll leave links to your projects in the comments so we can all learn together.

If Mr. Slater's been disappointed by gifts of homemade lusciousness in the past, my guess is he never received a present from one of us.

* You know how you're always saying you should have people over more? Yeah, me too. I'm seriously thinking that should be my New Year's Resolution - more people, more often.

Plus ça change

2008-11-01T07:21:00.005-04:00

For as long as humans have memorialized religious and cultural events with feasts and gift-giving there have been corresponding backlashes seeking to return such celebrations to the way they used to be. No doubt the second observance of any given holiday is beset by plaintive wailings of "but we didn't to it that way laaaast year" which are repeated with gathering and indignant alarm every year thereafter.

Which brings us to the Holiday Season 2008. Happy Diwali everyone!

This year I am taking a position on the vanguard of So It's Not Like Last Year (or Any Year Prior to That). I read a lot of old books, books which are just as rife with complaints about immoral excess amongst celebrating citizenry as our current blogs. I'm struck by the similarity of arguments over the centuries - that children are given too much, that adults eat too much and overshop, that religious institutions don't do enough to stem the tide of modern intemperance. The dismay of 1800 isn't so very different from ours today.

Not that I think that we can turn a blind eye to any problems, micro or macro, that may arise from both public and private observances. I groove on the Handmade Holiday and the Buy Handmade movements as much as the next girl. I adore Etsy with the heat of a thousand white-hot suns. And yet I recognize and wince more than a bit at the creeping temptation and encouragement to use such sensibilities and resources as shorthand for how well someone "gets" any number of issues, from transforming any given holiday into some ill-defined notion of past celebrations to making an economic statement.

Who among us wants to be the one who tells a working-two-minimum-wage-jobs mom that she needs to be getting online (digital divide, anyone?) and ordering artisanal puppets for her children because that's better for the environment and a more authentic gift? Or that she should kitting up to make those puppets, with the required expenses of fabric and glue gun and needle because that's what moms of yesteryear would have done (o.k., maybe Ma Ingalls did without the glue gun...) and those women would have been ~~satisfied~~ thrilled with such modest, within-budget expressions of affection? Meanwhile, the dollar store has adorable puppets in a range of styles that are deemed by a privileged class to be less-than because of where they were made or how much energy they required to get here. Well, that's not a conversation that I am willing to have.

There's an awful lot that vies to detract from our wholehearted engagement in whatever celebrations appear on our personal calendars and much to make us doubt any celebration in which we indulge is sufficient by one measure or another. Goodness knows that a glance the headlines is enough to make anyone want to call the whole thing off, or at least attempt to dial things back to an imaginary golden time when we believe that people didn't face such scariness as a matter of course. But of course they did, humans always have (there were no good old days, after all, where children and adults were perfectly pious in their merrymaking). This is part of the reason we have such celebratory seasons as the one we are entering. It's no accident that so many of us are preparing for festivals and holidays relating to various notions of finding light, literally and metaphorically.

I like walking into stores this time of year and taking note of the many types and varieties of candles, rich in color and scent. I love the strings of lights as suitable for Diwali as for my own Christmas observance. My local "designer discount" store has a collection of gorgeous Menorahs for sale - Jews mark the miracle of the oil with nine candles on a Menorah, candles which could also serve well for Sweden’s St. Lucia day or Thailand’s Loi Krathong festival.

The message is clear to me. In a time of deepening darkness, the best response is to find the light in each other. Let us avoid trying to find our own search lacking as compared to current false ideals papered over past realities. Humans are united in the search for illumination. This season, may we all find it, in every sense.

2008-10-22T20:04:00.005-04:00

My search for a new go-to perfume has been much more interesting than I could have ever predicted. I've long since given up the spray-and-smell method of fragrance selection as being not at all sufficient. Stalking my local perfume counters got me a whole bunch of nothing but a headache and some boring conversation with sales folks who know not much more than I outside the marketing materials plastered all over every glass and chrome surface. Even more frustrating is the fact that any given perfume counter sports exactly the same perfumes as any other (why I thought it would be otherwise when stores all seem to have the same clothes I couldn't tell you). Turns out there's a whole world of perfume blogs and books and websites and...did you know that the New York Times has a perfume critic? It does, in the dreamy Chandler Burr.

Googling phrases like how to pick a perfume and what perfume should I wear if I liked Magie Noire brought me to Perfume Smellin' Things. An excellent beginning, this blog helped me frame my search more as a quest for how I want to feel alongside how I want to smell. From there I ended up at Bois de Jasmin and spent hours reading review after review and then moved into a third perfume blog with a great post sharing the 411 on how to get testers. See? I'm not alone in my disinclination to shell out for a scent that might be a disaster (Angel? I'm looking at you.)

Finally, I ended up at The Perfumed Court (TPC). Score! These lovely folks decant bottles of expensiveness into smaller portions of the merely indulgent. Registering for their newsletter I found myself in possession of a coupon code that allowed me to try six teeny bottles of promising perfumes selected via blog reviews cross-referenced against TPC's "scents by notes" study guide and my lists of Brainiac's and my favorite smells. Mine: roses, pepper, leather, port, almond. His: roses, chocolate, leather, Scotch and cigars.

Most of what I ordered from TPC didn't work out as I had hoped, although they were perfectly pleasant (with a notable exception that was more Deep-Woods Off than anything else). One, though, came through in a way that I could not have possibly predicted having read about it - I'd ordered more as a dare to myself than with any real expectation of success. As I type I'm wearing Rose Poivree (by The Different Company) and keep stopping to smell my wrist. It's rosy - but not in a tea-rose-boutonniere way, it's something more genteelly decayed and altogether less cute - and peppery and a wee bit naughty smelling (this article by the aforementioned scrumptious Chandler Burr explains why, but trust me that YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ IT. Consider yourself warned and don't come crying to me if you get grossed out. It's interesting, though.)

Not unlike myself, Rose Poivree has a bit of a mixed reputation. Some consider it a masterpiece, others a catastrophe. In the article linked above (which, remember? you don't want to read) Chandler Burr calls it "...unsettling and gorgeous, the perfume that Satan’s wife would wear to an opening at MoMA", a perspective that makes me laugh since I am so very far from embodying that kind of menacing glamour. The companion review gives Rose Poivree 5 stars. On me Rose Poivree smells deep and rich, peppery but not very spicy and rosy but not at all sweet. I love it.

The downside is that Brainiac can't smell it. Either I go around like a romance novel heroine smelling of peppered roses all the time and he can't tell the difference or it's just not a fragrance that registers for him (there's a word for this, but I can't think what it is). I'm keeping it anyway and will likely order a slightly larger bottle soon since my itsy decant is nearly gone and I'm feeling proactively bereft.

Rose Poivree is for me so I can smell my wrist all day long and be deliriously happy and just a teensy bit not-office-appropriate. But what of my quest to replace Magie Noire for encounters more romantic than sitting at my desk? I'm not giving up. The next round of contenders has been selected. Seeing as they involve more roses and spice and perhaps a surprise or two, something more ladylike, almost the exact opposite of the Rose Poivree?

This is so insanely fun.

No Place Like Home

2008-10-16T21:08:00.002-04:00

On a recent post I noted my disinclination to travel despite my interest in seeing new places and meeting new people. As much as I'd like to do these things, the desire to do so doesn't outweigh my dread of the process of traveling. (I was once a girl who spent weeks at a go living out of a backpack but I haven't seen her in a while.) And so, since one never does anything for which one's interest doesn't make the hassle worthwhile, I rarely go anywhere.

Still, there are places I'd like to go and may well do so if I can get beyond the shudder-inducing thoughts of baggage claim, carbon footprints, finding a pet-sitter, an ever-increasing fear of airplanes, keeping track of the kids in a jungle or bog or whatever, getting lost in a new language (I cannot adequately press upon you how likely I am to become lost in any given place), convincing Brainiac that the cost is worth expanding our collective horizons, and so many other anxieties and neuroses that seem to plague me. If I'm able to overcome this not inconsiderable list of obstacles, I think I'd like to visit:

1) Scotland. Duh, where else am I going to find an immortal Highland warrior of my very own? Of course, not being unavailable for the intimate company of immortal Highland warriors, what with being married and all, I'd introduce him to a single pal right away, making a mental note to press shamelessly for all the details after they do...whatever it is that one does with immortal Highland warriors. And then I'd buy Brainiac a kilt.

All joking (mostly) aside, I think that Scotland must be a beautiful place and I have tremendous respect for its history and what has been endured there through the centuries. And? Scotch, golf, castles and salmon. Score.

2) Thailand. My dad lived in Thailand (in that in-the-Air-Force-during-a-war kind of way) before I was born and his stories of his life there captivated my sisters and me as children. Although I understand that he has held much of the truth of that time to himself, the portrait he created for us was of a wondrous and beautiful country with riches counted in ways beyond those I've come to understand. I'd like to see for myself if reality matches what I see in my head.

3) The "Fairy Tail Road" through Germany. I once spoke German more-or-less well (depending upon my mood at the moment) but now remember virtually nothing save a conviction that it might be about to rain. This would be woefully insufficient for spending some time exploring the towns and villages where the Grimm Bros. collected the stories and legends that have become so well-loved (if in slightly less macabre forms than the originals). I'd like to know if I have the mental grit to dig deep and remember enough to enrich a visit and not annoy anyone. Not too badly, anyway.

4) Vienna and Budapest. I bet they're fabulous and wear the weight of history exceedingly well. And? Pastries.

5) Marrakesh. I just...the past...so much...swoon. Yes. Marrakesh.

6) Canadian Rockies. On a train. Wonderfully huge and iconic and magnificent, an excellent place to feel small.

There are other places - Hadrian's Wall, Pyramids, the Acropolis, among others - I might like to see in a perfect world of safe and affordable on-time travel with no environmental repercussions or lost luggage. The above contenders, though, are those that might just provoke me to get outside of my head and on the road.

Iron Lady

2008-10-12T20:37:00.006-04:00

I once read a quote, attributed to Margaret Thatcher, that sticks with me these many years later. The gist of the idea goes like this: Think of a day that finishes with you very happy and satisfied and you will note that it's not a day when you did nothing; rather it is the day when you had everything to do and did it all.

Being a woman disposed to action, I found in these words something of a motto. I weary of navel gazing, long bouts of speculative cogitation without execution and the "ready, aim, aim, aim..." without ever reaching "fire" that typifies so much of life. My patience is short with those who have more excuses than accomplishments (note that I'm not talking - necessarily - about financial and/or professional success; I take a broader view). It is not in my nature to let the wind take me where it will; I have a plan. I have lists. I have flow-charts and forms and all manner of organizational savvy. This is my comfort zone.

So when the times come, as they inevitably do, when I forget a birthday, write but don't mail a thank you note, let my sharpish tongue loose ill-advisedly, I will call up the memory of a day like today. Today we had everything to do and we have done it. Every last line on the list (started by me and Brainaic on Thursday, as is our custom, adding to it right up until we arrive home on Friday evening when the checking-off begins) has been struck and I am considering framing the the result, one slightly worn and very much scribbled-upon piece of repurposed memo.

From remembering the scarves for the Seamen's Church Institute as we breezed out the door for church to defrosting the freezer to changing my car's oil to five loads of laundry washed and dried/hung, I am full of the warm glow of achievement. Food has been made and packed for the upcoming week of football practice, scout meetings, committee meetings, school events and preschool lunch bunch, and broth has been created from the remains of this evening's chicken. I managed to buy a much-needed purse (on sale! Thank you, Columbus) and Brainiac remembered his promise to take the Boy to the driving range, enjoying the fine weather of a perhaps-early Little Summer. I staged a family story time, painted the Girl's fingernails a lovely soft pink, and cheered Brainiac's latest protoyping project. A more glorious day would be hard for me to imagine for we not only were able to do these things but so very appreciative and a grateful for the privilege of having them to do.

And yet. The sun set several hours ago now and in the quiet night my thoughts turn to wondering what trouble or dismay, personal and not, may meet me tomorrow. The twin specters of private fears and public dread fight to crowd my satisfaction in what I know to have been a wonderfully productive time. Still. Whatever the week brings, in my family or in the world, my essential nature is comforted in knowing that life's lists are never totally scratched complete. We have done much and there is much to do. We will do it.

Not Strange At All

2008-10-01T20:57:00.002-04:00

Even as I typed the thing in the last post about French fries I had the thought to stop and delete. It is kind of an odd thing to do, after all. In the end I consoled myself with the conviction that if that's the oddest thing about me then I suppose I'm just fine. A nice, normal, sliding-into-middle-age woman with no terrible neuroses or eccentricities.

That was Tuesday. Flash forward, if you will, to last weekend.

We celebrated the Boy's eighth birthday on Saturday. As part of party preparations, Brainiac was charged with procuring beer (the grade schoolers are much more...pliable with a few beers in 'em*) and salty snacks like chips and pretzels, sold along side the beer at distributors.** Among the other treats he brought home were a package of Necco wafers, one of my favorite sweets. Yay, Brainiac!

So on Sunday after company left and (most of) the cleaning up had been done I sat down to blogsurf and enjoy my Neccos. As I drifted from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books to Angry Chicken to goodness knows what else, probably LOLCats or something similarly invigorating, I happily opened the pack and began to...separate the Neccos into piles by color and eat them two-by-two, green first followed by yellow, then orange, then pink, purple, brown then white. At one point, I think during the oranges, Brainiac came up behind me and I gushed my thanks that he selected such an awesome roll - heavy on the purples, browns and whites. He watched me eat a couple pairs, remarked at what I was doing, shook his head and fled for the relative sanity of the family room.

"If you think this is strange,"I called after him,"You should see what I do with French fries."

* Kidding! Kidding! The beer Brainiac bought was much too expensive to give to kids, what with their uneducated palates.

** Where I live, beer can only be sold at what are essentially beer stores. These stores cannot sell wine or spirits, which can only be sold in "state stores" run by the Liquor Control Board. Strange, but there you are.

Grand Re-Opening or, Not Even Close to 100 Things About Me

2008-09-23T21:27:00.003-04:00

I thought I'd do a bit of a Grand Re-Opening here at Hot Water Bath, planned just right to follow my most recent Unannounced Periodic Shut Down wherein I don't post for an unspecified period of time (carefully designed and timed to drive away the couple dozen people who check in faithfully). To kick off the festivities, here is a little bit of information about me and what it is that I'm up to - just to provide a little context for the next time I up and go without so much as a by your leave.

In no particular order:

1) Today is my 13th wedding anniversary. Brainiac's, too.

2) We have two children, a Boy and a Girl. They are delightful.

3) We have two cats, a boy and a girl. They are somewhat, but only somewhat, less so.

4) I work for a hugegantic global corporation that makes products which a) some folks adore and b) some folks revile. Your mileage may vary.

5) We are Episcopalian. Some take this to mean we are too Christian and still others find us not Christian enough. That thing about mileage? Ditto.

6) As I get older I find righteous indignation more difficult to access.

7) My recent reading habits would have appalled the 20 year old me. I'm o.k. with it.

8) My superpowers include always finding good parking and rarely waiting for elevators.

9) I'd like to see new places, but hate the process of traveling to get to them. It's less taxing to stay home.

10) When I eat French fries, I match them up by size and eat them two by two. If there is an unmatched fry left at the end it doesn't get eaten.

11) I don't like ketchup with fries unless there is also malt vinegar.

12) My latest Strongly Held Conviction is that there are only three reasons people do any given thing: they want to, they have to or they *think* they have to. There are probably more of the last than the others. I have no idea if this would be considered true by actual scientific types, but it seems like it might be, yes?

13) Corollary to my latest Strongly Held Conviction: The reasons that people don't do something are: they don't want to, they can't or they don't *think* they can't. There are probably more of the last than the others. That thing about science types? Ditto.

14) I am a terrible housekeeper.

15) This is why I try to have large amounts of company every few months so that I give into a week long cleaning frenzy.

16) I reserve the right to an unlisted phone number for myself but am driven bonkers when other people have them.

17) I haven't been to a movie theater since the first Harry Potter film.

18) My Netflix queue tops 275 items as a result.

19) I love bread pudding.

20) I don't understand pass interference or roughing the passer in football. Unlike baseball's infield fly rule, which is just inexplicably random and something I can therefore ignore, the first two seem to completely oppose the entire point of football - to knock people over and prevent them from doing things that could lead to scoring. Placing limits on that goal, short of actual violent stuff (facemask penalties I totally get) seems counterproductive to the game as I understand it. Which apparently I don't.

21) Not understanding football is putting a damper in my newly begun career as a Football Mom. Who knew that Right Tackle was an actual job description?

Smells Like Grown-Up Spirit

2008-08-01T20:42:00.003-04:00

When I was a blithe young thing I took to wearing Lancome's Magie Noire as a "good" fragrance. It had been the scent of the most glamourous woman I knew (glamourous women were not thick on the ground in Erie County, New York and it paid to watch them closely) and when I left for college I adopted it as my own, although I understood even then that its power was more Grown Woman and so much less 18 Year Old Playing Dress Up. It was my choice for hundreds of after-dark outings - to fraternity parties as well as dinners with Somewhat Older Boys Also Playing Dress Up - and if I couldn't quite handle the scent's blatant invitation, and I couldn't, I experienced no trouble because neither could those who might have tried had any been more experienced and/or competent in that area than I. While I smelled lovely as I swept through the streets of Powelton Village, Magie Noire's seductive potential was utterly lost on someone so young and also so very young, if you get my meaning.*

By the time I'd grown up enough to really own the scent something had changed and it (or I) was no longer the same. I wanted to love it still, to walk around all sexy and fatale smelling, but no. We're no longer right for each other, Magie Noire and I (pretending for a moment that we ever were), and I have been on the hunt for something to take its place for years.

This is not to say that I don't wear scents, because I do. I've had an extended on-again-off-again flirtation with Shiseido's Saso, and I've dabbled a bit in the whole shower-gel-and-spray thing - although why these things come in fruit scents I will never understand. Who wishes to smell like a buffet luncheon's salad cup? Not I. Let's see...there was a brief enthusiasm for Isabella Rosselini's Manifesto that died as quickly as its own basil notes, as well as a very short fling with something by Laura Ashley that I admired chiefly for its bottle. And then there was some men's scent that was loosely based on lavender which promised to settle down to something only sort-of masculine but never did.

I deal with my own prejudices. I will not wear anything celebrity "created" - not Britney, not Mariah, not Jennifer and not (just for consistency's sake because I understand that Lovely is, well, lovely) Sarah Jessica. Will not. I will not wear anything that's too easy to obtain (I know, I know, snob) and do not wish to wear anything that might be described as a blockbuster - if it's commonly acknowledged that women do not wish to dress alike it should not be so hard to extrapolate that we also do not wish to smell alike.

And there's my husband. He has a conflicted relationship with scents - loves them wafting up from, say, a double of Macallan 18 or maybe a particularly rich cigar. He can smell a piece of milk chocolate from a league away and relishes the old roses that grow along our stone wall, but hates anything that reminds him of grass that requires mowing, aged women of his relation (loves the women, doesn't wish me to smell like them), exotic fruits, pine, too many flowers in a too small room or baby powder. The only scent he ever wears is Paco Rabanne Pour Homme and has made one bottle last nearly 15 years (and counting). You could say he's indifferent, I suppose, to the whole notion of fragrance and his rather minimal requirement of me is that I don't make him sneeze (this, I realize, is a very low bar seduction-wise). If he could choose a scent for me, it would probably be something on the order of single-malt/Hershey Kiss/roses/tobacco/leather. (Interestingly, this might actually be possible. Me having a fragrance like that, I mean, not him actually set out to choose one on my behalf.)

Where this leaves me, I don't know. I've haunted the perfume counter at my local Nordstrom's to the point where I may be believed to be a stalker and I've even sprung for a few small bottles of things from Ebay that sounded like they might be right for me, but weren't (Creed's Royal English Leather among them, sigh). I spritzed nearly every Jo Malone fragrance carried by a boutiquey place in Charlottesville until the proprietress got all narrow-eyed and frownish with me and I had to buy some Zoppini charms to calm her. There was even a very short and quite disastrous homebrew attempt with oils bought at a hippy dippy health foods store-cum-homeopathic supply shop.

Am I asking too much? What I want is something that smells like me, but better, that will make my husband lean in for a second welcome home kiss now and will remember me to my children when I'm gone, one that makes me smile and surreptitiously (or not) sniff the inside of my elbow all day, one that whispers come back when I've gone off flirting with something else.

There is a sale at The Perfumed Court. It may be time to get serious.

* This was back in the days of Poison and Knowing, when everyone went around smelling like floozies as a matter of course.

Love My Peaches

2008-07-22T20:48:00.006-04:00

Canning fruit without the embellishing steps required for saucing, pie filling or jam (or some other concoction where fruit is an ingredient rather than the point) is crazy easy, not to mention fast. Two summers ago I went on a cherry glom. Last year seemed to be the Summer of the Blackberry (in plain water, brandied, in syrup - all fabulous in every way). This year finds me in love with peaches.

Canning peaches is easy-peasy and requires no special equipment or ingredients. In fact, the only thing I don't like is that extra pots and bowl are required, what for the defuzzing and all, but then I remind myself that my houseplants adore the cooled defuzzing water and I snap out of it. Start by getting your canning kettle started so it's ready when you are - with this, you are one step ahead of the process. Next, scrub and sterilize your jars - I use pints - and get your lids and rings to a simmer. Then start another large pot of water boiling. (By now you're thinking, "What? I'm seriously going to use three burners for this business? Peaches suck. I quit." But they don't, not really, and if you quit you won't have peaches in January so stick with it.)

1) When you've got a nice bubbly boil, add the washed peaches a couple at a time (you can cut a small "x" into the bottom of each if you'd like - I don't bother) and transfer into a bowl of chilly water in 30-45 seconds. After they're cooled so that you can touch them, peel and slice off the pit (I do about 1/2 inch slices, but you can do what you like - smaller tends to fall apart on me and I have no interest in peach halves, although some people love them) into another bowl of cool water to which you've added some fresh lemon or lime juice. (You may need to add ice cubes to your bowls of water to keep them cool. Not surprising since you keep putting hot peaches in them, right?)

2) Once the peaches are defuzzed and sliced, set the bowl aside. On the burner that formerly hostes the defuzzing water now put another pot (I know, I know...) with the type of syrup you like - I use very light syrup (6 1/2 cups of water with 1/2 cup of sugar) but you can do a quite sweet heavy syrup (4 cups each sugar and water) if you like, or anything in between. The internet is full of syrup suggestions, most of them fine. Some canning books offer recipes of honey-based syrups and even some sugar substitutes can be used. Do what you like, I won't judge.

3) Pack the drained fruit into your sterilized jars until the fruit is about an inch from the top, and pour in the hot syrup (carefully!) leaving half an inch of headspace. Seal with the sterilized lid and ring.

4) Process in a boiling hot water bath for 15 minutes (starting to count after the water comes to a boil once the jars are lowered).

5) Cool the jars on a tea towel and pat yourself on the back. Listen for that tell-tale ping of a job well done.

6) If you have leftover peaches, make a pie with a crumble crust. Go ahead, you deserve it. If you still leftover peaches, make ice cream. If there remain more peaches, I have to ask: how many did you start with?

2008-06-30T22:20:00.002-04:00

I actually took a picture of my big ole' bowl of to-be-jarred salsa. I really did. But, as I'm sitting here very comfortably, sipping a homemade limeade, the odds are increasingly slim that I'll actually stand up, walk to the dining room, take the camera out of its drawer (yes! we keep the camera in the dining room, no where near the computer - this could explain why I never have any pictures), walk back to my desk, connect it, turn it on and...see? It's just not happening. You can picture it, though, right? Big glass bowl? Filled with chopped veggies and looking (mostly) green? Good! That's exactly what it looks like.

I don't actually have a recipe for the salsa, just a list of ingredients with which I mess around until I get something I think tastes good. Even if the result is different from batch to batch I'm able to respond to nuances in the ingredients (some tomatillas are tangier than others, for example, and some onions sharper) and also contrive to use up bits of remainders hanging out in the fridge. It's an approach I like to take with many things, come to think of it.

This bowl has about four pounds of tomatillas (minced), half of a large yellow onion (chopped), half of a large red onion (chopped), a head of garlic (minced), salt and pepper, a chopped hot pepper, a fist full of cilantro (chopped) and a splash or two of cider vinegar. Good stuff.

Processing the salsa tonight (15 minutes in a boiling hot water bath) took care of one of my weekend projects. The other, my sister's birthday tote, is marked but as yet uncut and oh-so-far from completion. I've been in canning and knitting world lately but really need to get back to sewing for a while - too many things started but not completed and wanted before the summer is out (like, sundresses for the girl and a linen skirt for myself - can't imagine wanting them in, say, November which is when I'll get to it if I don't shape up). Then again, if I order the Darn Good Yarn I've been scoping, my return to the sewing machine might be delayed further.

Too many hobbies, so little time.

2008-06-27T21:00:00.002-04:00

I write this while in the next room a pile of ingredients for tomatilla salsa lay (lie?) waiting for my attention. It's not so terribly late but I am very tired and I just don't know if I have it in me tonight. If I bucked up, poured an iced tea and got to business I know I'd be glad for it later so perhaps I'll have to let that thought carry me through since Brainiac's installation of air conditioning in the kitchen has nearly completely removed my former favorite excuse for procrastination - the heat and humidity of a Philadelphia summer - from use. Ah, well.

Tomatilla salsa is one of those things that I make about once and year and really love having around. Not only is it great plain on tortilla chips, but it's a good ingredient to glam up otherwise workaday dishes. It's wonderful over grilled steak, for example, or as a spread on a wrap (mixed with mayo and a bit of lime is even better). It can be part of a salad dressing or folded into a crepe batter and is a little piece of heaven inside an omelet along with a bit of chevre.
Hey, look what I did...talked myself right into it. At the very least I'll get everything diced and minced tonight and will likely do the actually canning tomorrow night. That's always a good compromise.

My other big project for the weekend is to complete the tote I've started for my sister. I gave one of these to my youngest sis for Christmas and had so much fun making it that I've added it to my gift-giving repertoire. This one is made from the directions in Christina Strutt's Romantic Home Sewing in a sort of wheat colored canvas. My plan is to embroider an initial or perhaps a flower or something on one side. Whatever I decide, I need to get it done because her birthday is in a little under two weeks and the tote must be mailed. I need to step on it, in other words. The only hold up I see is making the handles, a task that involves turning little fabric tubes right-side out and which is my least favorite sewing task. Like the salsa, I suppose, I will just have to buck up.

2008-06-26T20:28:00.002-04:00

I bet you're all just aflutter wondering who won the copy of The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. I'm right, yes? I can see you afluttering from here.

But! This is the moment for which you've been waiting, ducks. The lucky winner is Rachel (of blackberry jam fame). Rachel, if you would e-mail me your snail mail address at hotwaterbath AT gmail DOT com I'll get the tome out to you right away. Congratulations and happy canning!

I hope all who hoped to win will stick around through the summer and experience a little canning company. We'll pickle, we'll jam, we'll dice and slice...fun for all, but especially those who want to make something.

A bit of clean-up before tackling our next adventures:

1) It occurs to me that my current blog layout looks horrible. I liked it for a while then we got a new computer with one of those big ole' screens and it didn't work so I tweaked and now it doesn't look nice on any screen. I'll work on that.

2) Melissa asked if I'd been reading Stephanie Meyer's paranormal romance. No, but thanks for the tip. I've been cuddling up with Kresley Cole, J.R. Ward, Charlaine Harris and Michelle Rowen and will now happily add Ms. Meyer to the list. Between these and my alarmingly large Regency habit, I may never get to real cult-chah again. Oh, don't look at me like that. I've also been reading a lot about Abigail Adams and white holes, so it's not like I've totally chucked serious reading. Just mostly.

3) I have a little tradition of assigning myself summer projects. One year I read nothing but E.M. Forster (those days are apparently over; see also point number two, above), another year I needle pointed wildflowers on cocktail napkins. Then there was the summer that I drank only G&Ts, each made with a different brand of gin (not all my projects are of a self-improvement nature). This year I've decided to put my Netflix subscription to good use and watch as many movie and/or television adaptations of the works of Jane Austen as I can find. Brainiac is afeared for his movie watching life, groaning every time one of the red envelopes arrives in the mail (although I believe that he secretly enjoys the spectacle, entreating this or that character by yelling at the screen the way he might in reaction to an ill-conceived football play. Gives me a giggle, actually) but I think that movies are an excellent project for the Now in which I find myself. It's possible to knit, pit cherries, snap beans, needlepoint, play Battleship, write letters, coo over block towers and, yes, blog all while comparing and contrasting the various approaches in Austenolatry.

So, busy as a bee. You?

2008-06-19T19:49:00.002-04:00

So you may have heard that I spoke recently with Lauren Devine, Community Marketing Manager for Ball Corporation and the company's public face of home food preservation. Among her many responsibilities are the running of Ball's Fresh Preserving website, recipe testing, and educating salespeople and retailers about home preservation methods. She started her career as an intern and has seen her role expand to it's current very broad scope. She is, basically, the canning world's go-to girl.

I started our conversation by asking her thoughts on what I see as the myth that home canning is too time intense to be useful to the average family (confession: I may have prejudiced her response by using the words "nonsense idea" or possibly even "ridiculous poppycock"). Turns out, Lauren agrees with me that canning needn't be an overwhelming time commitment. "Do your prep the night before," she explains, "And pack and process the next night. Oh, and start heating the canner before doing anything else on processing night so it will be ready when you are."

Moreover, Lauren recommends rethinking the time issue by remembering that home canned products are essentially convenience foods. "When you can food at home you're trading one night of 'babysitting' your food for many individual nights. If you're canning a sauce you're only standing over the stove doing that once, instead of a dozen times throughout the year," she reminded me.

I asked about safety education. Lauren said that she's seeing a greater understanding of the "whys" of home canning safety measures and more of a willingness on behalf of new canners to employ modern techniques. "People who have been canning a long time may not be aware of the latest methods because they don't need to seek out education," she said and recommended that even experienced canners consult with their local extension services or with the members of the Fresh Preserving forums. "There's a wealth of knowledge on the forums, "Lauren said, "And the members are very free with their support and advice." She also recommends that new and experienced canners alike double check the pH of old favorite recipes to make sure they're appropriate for the preservation method. Extension services or university agriculture programs might be of some help for this.

I wondered what Lauren's opinions of the resurgence of home canning. I have my own theories, of course (I have my own theories about everything), about why my inbox sees ever-increasing numbers of questions, but I wondered if my thoughts would be borne out by the experts. Lauren responded, "We think there are several factors causing home canning to be a re-emerging practice. The "locavore" trend is probably one factor. People are trying to eat locally and support their local communities. We see this happening in several ways, one of which is the increasing number and popularity of farmers' markets while another is CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Programs, where people can work with a local farmer to get seasonal produce in exchange for a fee and/or by helping on the farm. Whichever way you get your produce, to eat local during the winter months is more of a challenge so people are preserving their locally purchased food during spring and summer to enjoy out of season."

I mentioned the current inflationary economy, too, echoing some my correspondents' questions about whether home canning is really a money-saver. "Yes, that's part of it, too. We have seen a 30% increase in sales in the last year of large glass Ball® jars which are often used for food storage of rice, flour and sugar," she told me, "With rising food prices, more people are turning to home canning and food storage as a way to save money." I told Lauren that I don't believe that home canning necessarily results in the most rock-bottom cheap food but rather it's in bringing other values into the equation that makes it such an attractive proposition - values, at my house, that include family, environment, community and a certain DIY-ethos. "Yes," Lauren agreed, "Today, we have access to produce in several different ways throughout the year, so we don't necessary home can to survive through winter. We home can for a sense of accomplishment, to create something new or different not available at the grocery store, to create special gifts for others and to control the food which you consume. Home canning allows you to have control over what goes into your food. There are more and more people with food allergies and special diet needs such as low sodium or lower sugar options. With this control, you know you are providing your family the healthiest and safest food possible."

I asked Lauren what she would recommend as a good project for a first-time canner. "For someone just getting started, I would recommend making a freezer jam with Ball® Simple Creations® Freezer Jam Pectin. There is no cooking involved and you only need 2 other ingredients. This recipe can be made in less than 30 minutes and you preserve by freezing up to 1 year or refrigerating for up to 3 weeks. After that, I would recommend moving up to a cooked jam or jelly using one of our three pectin products. Each pectin has an insert that contains tips for making homemade jam and jelly, an equipment listing, and full recipe and home canning instructions. Plus, there are many recipes to choose from within the insert. These recipes are mainly home canned and can be stored up to 1 year in the pantry."

And for someone more experienced? "A more seasoned canner would probably like to try their hand in one of our newer, trendy recipes they have never tried before. Or, they may like to try fermented pickles like our grandmothers used to do. This process can take up to 6 weeks - so this may be more challenging for them!" (For my part, I'm planning on a bit of Lemon Sage Wine Mustard - a bit of that on my shelf would make a long winter much spicier, indeed.)

After 45 minutes of bending her ear, I allowed Lauren to escape both me and her phone. I really appreciated her time - it's not often I get to talk about canning as much as I want - and all of the effort she puts into the recipes in Ball's books and on the Fresh Preserving website. (More than that, she laughed when I said how little esteem I hold for piccalilli - not to be underestimated.) I'd been getting into a bit of a rut, recipe-wise (mango jam again) but with her hard work and encouragement I see so much more inspiration. Thai Hot and Sweet Dipping Sauce! Bruschetta in a Jar! Ya'll know what I'll be doing this summer, right? Join me?

2008-06-18T06:36:00.002-04:00

Well. Let' see. I responded to some comments, but don't see those answers. I also posted my interview with Lauren Devine of Fresh Preserving but don't see that post.

This is going even more splendidly than I dreamed it would! My first little drawing thing.

O.K., here's what we'll do. This isn't the Oscars(tm) and we're not audited by those nice men in dark suits who come on to tell everyone the rules. This is my blog and, unorthodox as it may be, I'm going to change the rules midstream to try an impose some kind of order on this business. Plus, I've had a deadline move up from next week to this (again! why does this happen?!) and, well, there it is.

So. Anyone who comments in a post that happens to include Lauren Devine's name in it (I think this is the third, the repost of the interview will be the fourth) will have an entry in the contest. Comments in two such posts will result in two entries, and so forth. The drawing will be the close of business, my time, Friday.

This works, yes? I am sorry for this bloggy change-up but it's my first time and I feel that I'll take for myself a bit of forbearance (one of my all-time favorite words). We're still friends, right?

2008-06-15T18:40:00.004-04:00

So I mentioned a bit ago how I'd had this lovely discussion with a woman named Lauren Devine of Fresh Preserving, the Ball Corporation's public face of home food preserving. We had a delightful chat that veered, in my very unjournalistic fashion, from recipe testing and development to getting started with canning to risk management and (my) whispered confessions on that point. Lauren stared with Ball as an intern and is now the company's official canning professional/cheerleader.

At the conclusion of our talk (the results of which I'll be posting in the next day or so) Lauren offered to send me a copy of The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. What a dear, I thought, and accepted on behalf of my legions of fans, adding that if she didn't mind too terribly much I might just have a little contest to pass it along. The next day two copies arrived in the mail, one inscribed to little old me. After reading the inscription I turned back to cover and noticed that Ms. Devine is a co-author of this encyclopedic home canning reference. And I hadn't known.

To those of you who don't know, this is kind of like meeting Jerry Garcia and, not realizing it, figuring him to be a lonely man away from home on business and inviting him to dinner (no, wait, I actually did this...finding out after the fact who he was and that his little band was in fact playing in town that night). Maybe it's more like unknowingly stumbling upon Martha Stewart in the local craft store and engaging in a bit of a chat over which glue gun is better for making, I don't know, whatever. Or sort of like bumping into Condoleeza Rice unawares and blasting those out of touch, inside-the-beltway folks in D.C.

Embarrassing, in other words.

I won't dwell, though, as I am not generally a dweller. Instead I think we should press on with all good intentions on this little drawing scheme. Agreed?

Here's the deal: leave a comment on this point and the post in which I relate the details of my discussion with Ms. Devine. Of all the folks who comment in both posts, I will draw one name and that person will receive a copy of The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving delivered straight to his or her door. I'll do the drawing this coming Wednesday.

What do you think? Good? This is a lovely book, filled with all kinds of neato things that can be made and enjoyed by beginners and experienced canners alike. Good luck to all!

2008-06-11T22:05:00.000-04:00

Granting oneself a bit of time off now and again is a wonderful thing. I highly recommend it.

You may (or not) be wondering what I've been doing these months. Me, too. Thinking hard about life since March I come up with...not much. A bit of canning (strawberry jam), a bit of sewing (a skirt of pink linen and little embroidered orange dots), a teensy bit of learning to knit (a few rows of variable stitch numbers, alas),*and a spot of gardening (I'm late with the beans!).

Mixed in with these little bits of domesticana, I gave Brainiac a 40th birthday party, read a ton of books the nature of which I'm only a teensy bit embarrassed to share (ahem, cough, paranormal romance), visited with my parents, chatted with friends, pined for a painting from my neighbors' art show, rediscovered the wonder of the rum gimlet, and finally used the guest soap I believed for years to be too pretty to clean my own tired hands. It's a small life, perhaps, but it's mine and I come by it honestly.

Now that my vacation is over, I have much to which I must attend. I've had the pleasure of interviewing Lauren Devine from Fresh Preserving and will be posting the results of our delightful conversation later this week. I'm looking to try a few new canning recipes, too, and am hoping to push the boundaries of sane zucchini growing (how many does one garden need?). Then there are the small matters of resolving the window mis-treatments I've got about the premises and expanding my reading beyond amorous vampires. I do hope you'll come back to hear about it all and more.

*I am the living embodiment of the term "late adopter". Now that I have gotten around to learning to knit properly, it's only fair to warn all and sundry that knitting as a trend is likely over. Sorry, Jane Brocket. Truly.

2008-03-15T09:06:00.002-04:00

We have a problem with horizontality around here and have for some time. To wit:

and

The primary symptom is that any given horizontal surface is almost continually covered in an intractable coating of junk consisting of paper, small toys, errant earrings, nuts, bolts, grass seeds (true!), and goodness knows what else. We have it bad in our house and as much as I'd like to blame the 200+ year old domicile's lack of storage I know that the truth lies elsewhere. Namely, with me.

I feel kind of out of my league in this online spring cleaning program I'm following - some of these women really rock the housekeeping thing, whereas I'm kind of the kid in the basement with a dime store guitar singing Jukebox Hero into a floor lamp "microphone" while they're selling out Madison Square Garden (precisely what the song is about, diluting my point somewhat). I am the Cherry Cherry to their Neil Diamond. In keeping with my lack of skill I'm not spring cleaning rooms, turning my attention instead to neglected bits of square footage. Mine are small accomplishments, but they're come upon honestly.

Last night I completely denuded the living room tables, dusted and oiled them. Yes I did! I know homekeeping experts are mixed in their opinions of oiling wood furniture and I (not an expert) come down on the side of pro. The oil smells nice and some of my tables are older than I (remnants from a time when furniture was still make by hands rather than machines and wasn't intended for replacement every 10 years) and have survived oiling all this time so I have no hesitation. A bit of lemon oil and an old cloth diaper go a long way to putting things right.

The oil was just the beginning. All that stuff on the tables? Put away.. Well, mostly. Some of the papers ended up on my desk, which requires a horizontality treatment of its own which is unlikely to happen today. The broken play necklace has been glued, the wallet-size photos put into my new wallet, the flyers about the pre-school rummage sale put into my purse for when we venture out, the library books gathered and placed into two of the coffee table cubbies, etc., etc., etc.. Away.

2008-03-13T20:25:00.003-04:00

I will sum up my quietude of late with seven words: Brainiac's doctor has ordered a chest x-ray.

She is merely being cautious in light of his history and none of us is particularly worried but the directive is indicative of the general state of affairs around here. Between what looks like a mild (but still) secondary infection for him, an on-pins-and-needles situation for me and the general schedule-busting mayhem that comes with spring break we're all a bit spent. As I type this it's nearly a quarter to nine at night - the first night in three that I've been awake to see this time tick-tock past. That I'm still up and energetic enough to start a load of laundry and cruise the blogs a bit, I'd say that things are looking up.

None of this is to say that I haven't managed the odd burst of household productivity. The children's au pair turned 25 years old on Monday night and we celebrated with this:

O.K., you know, that doesn't look so hot all big and blown up on my screen like that. Trust me when I tell you that it was really quite yummy. Yummy makes up for a number of aesthetic issues, yes?

The essential idea came from Clotilde Dusoulier's Chocolate and Zucchini cookbook, after the blog of the same name. Because I can never leave anything alone I made some changes to the core recipe, gilded the lily a bit and ended up with what seemed like the very essence of indulgence.

Instead of Clotilde's pate sable I used a regular old American-style pie crust - I had no time for a learning curve and knew my recipe to be perfectly acceptable. Over the crust which had been baked at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, I poured a caramel of dark brown sugar (the original recipe called for light brown sugar). This was allowed to set for several hours.

Over top the caramel is a bittersweet ganache made with heavy cream and nine ounces of dar-ar-ar-ar-ark chocolate. After that set I topped the whole thing with sweetened whipped cream. The original recipe doesn't call for such tarting (ha!) up, but I don't need heavy cream just sitting about the house begging to take a swim in my coffee.

You can see from the pictures that this tart/pie was strictly amateur hour. Unlike the wildly talented Clotilde I will not be offered a book deal on the basis of my capacity for turning out delicious and beautiful confections. It was wonderful to eat, though, smooth and creamy and just sweet enough between the caramel and whipped cream. The very dark chocolate added a deep note that kept the whole thing from being too cloying. Best of all, the celebrating recipient loved it as I hoped that she would.

2008-02-29T20:50:00.006-05:00

(Note: The date on this post isn't right. It's March 6, not February 29. I'm curious as to how this happened, but not nearly enough to actually figure it out. It is what it is.)

I wish I was making it up when I tell you that Brainiac has me watching, as I type, a television show about runways. Runways! I am so going to retaliate with a show about, I don't know, sewing for dollhouses or balloon sculptures or something. Runways! Honestly.

We've had a little bit of spring feeling in the past few days - a most welcome development. I know it can't last, of course. Our date of last frost is still some weeks away and anything can happen. Even so I'm definitely feeling springy, with all that such a feeling brings with it. I'm sketching (and re-sketching and) the garden plan, double-checking the supply of canning jars and lids and, most unbelievably to just about everyone who lives with me, doing all these nesty spring cleaning type jobs.

Starting small, of course. I don't want to hurt myself with sudden cleaning moves to which my body is most unaccustomed. I'm gearing up for a major meme-type collaborative effort but, again, have no wish to rush into anything. I'm all about the ramp-up here at Hot Water Bath and the little cleaning-like project that's given me the most satisfaction so far is organizing the living room bookshelf.

I don't actually have a before pic of the bookshelf but trust me when I say that its condition didn't exactly illustrate the message I deep-down wanted to send: that two grown-up people with a teensy amount of au courant taste if not quite a matching budget (hence the prefab faux cherry model bought at a discount from a big box store because the packaging was damaged). We've gone from three shelves crammed with workbooks, scraps of paper festooned with the phone number of long-forgotten need and goodness knows what keeping the bottom doors from closing (possibilities: a large bag with a number of plastic coins mimicking various denominations of U.S. currency, a tin of long since dried markers, a white board with a faded clock face).

But now! Now we have this:

O.K. I can see in this shot that the Girl's little pink bible has fallen in back of the Uncle Sam bank. Whatever. It's so much better than it was and I'm not going to fret about a little imperfection. The important thing is that without all the junk and not-often-used miscellanea we can see that which we truly value - pictures of people important to us, heirlooms and books that see frequent reference (I'm amused to note that The Book of Common Prayer ended up on top of one of Brainiac's books about Scotch).

Like I said, I'm starting small. In this case, though, small seems quite large, indeed.

2008-02-27T04:40:00.003-05:00

Did you ever read these weekly Works for Me Wednesday (WFMW) lists? There's nothing I love better than a tip (or two or three) to make my life easier so I've been really attracted to them lately. It's like reading Heloise on steroids and I've learned everything from how to hand sew button holes (good for the button hole challenged me) to ideas for new songs to sing to the kids on long car trips to how to buy a properly fitting bra. Really, it's like having a couple hundred BFFs who can't wait to e-mail or call with their latest great ideas.

I've actually been tossing around a few canning-related WMFW tips but figured I could wait until gardening and canning season are at hand, to keep things topical and all. Then I had an experience driving home from my parents' last week that I've been talking about since then with all the moms I know and it seemed like a pretty good topic. So here goes, my first Works for Me Wednesday tip, from my house to yours.

The kids and I take a few car trips a year without Brainiac. For this reason (and because our cars are always wretchedly old specimens - no in-car movies here!) we've always carried AAA. The expense has proven useful over the years and, whenever I'm tempted to drop the coverage, I'm reminded of being on the Beltway pulled over, pregnant and in the rain, with a flat. Or the time that I drove over some big old construction bolt and lost a tire. And just last week I had my front driver's side tire changed just a couple miles from the Lehigh Tunnel - there was a two-inch bulge in the sidewall that developed after I hit the Mother of All Potholes and immediately knew that I could not drive my babies another mile with that tire. (At this point I'd love to say that my tip is that I learned to change my own tires, but no.)

It's with this backdrop that I make my little WFMW offering to the world: Make sure you have an operational spare tire, and if at all possible keep a full-size spare. If you don't have a working spare, AAA can't help you. So even a "donut" spare is a good idea and I'm a little surprised at how many people I found in a short, totally unscientific survey that don't keep even this minimal solution around.

A full-size spare is helpful because not only can you resume your driving at a normal speed and with normal conditions, but because it buys you some time in having to get a new tire. Since I resent automotive-related expenditures of just about any kind and the need to purchase new tires always seems to come just when I have something more fun I'd like to do, having the full-size tire as a back-up can give us some breathing room to complete the trip without seeing the inside of an tire dealership, shop for price or gather the money from the budget without worry.

In a WFMW nutshell: Keep a full-size spare if you can (or make sure your donut is workable if you can't).

2008-02-24T20:39:00.002-05:00

A week of escapist reading has informed me that I am not alone in my rather low level of enthusiasm for February. To wit:

“February, and all I have ever known it to mean, brings with it a touch of dread to the mornings.”

Sylvia Jorrin. Sylvia's Farm. Bloomsbury, 2004

And then there's this:

"“After a stressful deadline in February – that bleak month when Ann Arbor hibernates and people hurry, hunched over in sky jackets through the dark – I decided to reward myself with a good meal.”

Jenni Ferrari-Adler. Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant Riverhead Books, 2007.

This, not from a published work, touched me the most deeply:

“I hate February.”

The pre-school director, a friend and fellow sufferer.

But that, as they say, is enough of that. With the last of this wretched month within grasp and March preparing its entrance, I am ready to pack up the entire experience of these last three or so weeks into my Big Box of Denial to be shoved into the top shelf of the closet on the third floor in that room that really creeps me out. In other words, I am done.

I have to confess, things are looking up. I was away with the kids for a few days and arrived home to a package that had come all the way from England. I'd no idea what it could have been and was delighted with a surprise from French Knots.

Isn't that just the most darling thing? I've been all organizey about my laundry lately, so this is right up my alley and just so sweet. Plus, she enclosed a chocolate bar - a chocolate bar which I did not share with anyone. Yippee!

As if that weren't enough cheering, the good folks at Fresh Preserving (the home of Ball canning) read my sad little confession that I don't own a copy of of classic Ball Blue Book and graciously sent me one, accompanied by some freezer jam containers and pectin. Now, I can't say what thrills me more - that these nice folks really are nice or that I can now say I've had my very own bloggy moment of having been noticed. Perhaps it's a little of both. Because I'm never satisfied, I asked if I could maybe interview one of the Fresh Preserving canning experts. With some luck and planning, that'll come in late March or April just as garden planting starts.

With these not-so-little sparks of happiness I'm definitely ready to stow that Big Box of Denial. March may come in like a lion, but you won't hear me complaining.

2008-02-14T21:39:00.004-05:00

My father often dismissed the entire month of February as too cold, too messy, too bothersome a month (for someone who lives in Buffalo year-round, this is saying something). I've always been a bit amused by his feelings and never quite understood them. Why, February has Valentine's Day, the Super Bowl, Candlemas, Ground Hog Day (fun!) and, more recently, the Girl's birthday. What's not to love? Myself, I'd always pegged April as the cruelest month, teasing bits of spring in between hard frosts and frigid nights and then, of course, J. died in April (and K. and C., all within two weeks of each other), hardening me against the entire month forever.

As I get older, though, I'm coming around to my father's point of view. Looking back over my journals I can see that he may well have been onto something all this time. Most of the truly painful events that I've felt the need to record over the past several years have fallen in February. A baby born still, a job loss, illnesses both severe and mild, dissolution of a marriage, scary tests and scarier results - all in the shortest month of the year. That February brings ice storms in my part of the world suddenly seems very appropriate, our very own Narnian "always winter" in one neat, 28(9)-day package.

It seems right to me this year that Lent covers most of February. Reflecting in this time of repentance I know I have much correct and also much to forgive. Perhaps this year with the reminder of the peace that passeth all understanding I can put the darkness of an unkind month behind me and everyone who has shared my bleak days. Perhaps I will be able to keep the words of a traditional Anglican blessing that I have always found beautiful even closer to my heart. "Life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who make this earthly pilgrimage with us. So, be swift to love. Make haste to do kindness. Shower abundant hospitality on friend and stranger. Walk in justice that you might follow the path of truth and love. And may the One who comes to us unbidden who for our lives was broken and who guides us into wholeness and holiness of life be among you and remain with you always."

Perhaps. I may even start liking April again.

2008-02-11T20:11:00.000-05:00

Sue responded to my onomatopoeia post with a note wondering if I had been having a migraine. I don't actually know much about migraine headaches - my own kinda, sorta, we don't really know what's wrong with you diagnosis is that I get cluster headaches. One of the hallmarks of clusters is that one might have several in a given period of time followed by time headache-free. Mine, assuming they are cluster headaches (which seems to be the best guess), are unusual because they include the flashes of light and often nauseate me - two things more characteristic of migraines - and they can last more than 15 hours. I was lucky because from the time I became pregnant with the Boy up until about a year ago I rarely suffered from headaches of any kind. I seem to be in a cluster now and, although it's not the worst I've experienced, it's still kicking my butt. Badly.

With the backdrop of feeling frazzled from a newly dissipated headache (the pain is gone, but the general rattledness associated is the gift that keeps on giving) coupled with arriving home later than expected this afternoon meant that my planned dinner of pasta shells with crab and peas (in cream sauce - yum) wasn't going to happen. So here I was, late, with the kids in smash!boom! mode and no thought what to do about feeding them. I managed to pull it off and after dinner it occurred to me that my own personal methods for dealing with these kinds of situations might be useful to someone else.

Tonight I ended up making a crustless quiche of five eggs, half a small onion, a cup of frozen peas, a few ounces of leftover ham (diced), a chopped carrot, a bit of shredded manchego cheese and half a cup of flour. All of this mixed together and baked at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes did the trick for an entree, served with brown rice simmered in beef broth, mashed sweet potatoes (roasted over the weekend and stored in the fridge against just this kind of need) with cinnamon. My total hands-on time was well under 30 minutes and I felt fairly pleased with myself when all was on the table and with only a slight amount of trauma on my part.

Crustless quiches are a great choice for busy cooks - eggs, a bit of flour and pretty much whatever else you like are all you need. I've used kale, chard, mushrooms, olives, parsnips, broccoli, all kinds of cheeses and even salsa. Not only are crustless quiches delicious, but they have the added virtue of using up bits of leftovers that aren't enough for anything else.

I try not to feed my family too much in the way of pasta, but do rely on two forms for those days when I'm really pressed. Angel hair, orzo and couscous each cook up very quickly and take on all kinds of diced or chopped veggies easily (I like to include a bit of sauteed garlic and onion, too). A light sauce of chicken broth thickened with cream and warmed through makes a nice topping that comes together easily.

One of the chief benefits of doing as much canning as I do is that there are a number of products in my repertoire that amount in reality to nothing more than homemade convenience foods. Having roasted tomato sauce, applesauce, mixed pickles and more on hand means that, when push comes to shove, there is something that can be relied upon to dress up a quickly produced and more humble offering. Scrambled eggs with applesauce isn't an unheard of dinner plate around here and nor is a lightly seasoned roasted chicken breast with mixed pickle and fruit salad. Knowing I have a cupboard full of ready-to-go foods made by me with ingredients that I either grew, picked or purchased in season is the ultimate in dinner planning.

With these simple meal solutions generally at hand I can cope with just about anything come the dinner hour, whether it be a headache, a late meeting or just your standard-issue energetic offspring bouncing around the kitchen demanding to know "is dinner ready yet?"

2008-02-09T20:29:00.001-05:00

I'm sitting here on our very uncomfortable futon, shivering, with a cup of tangerine-mint tea by my side hoping against hope that I'm not coming down with round 2 of the noro virus that's sweeping through town. The cats are asleep on my feet so at least part of me is toasty. I simply cannot be sick - I've got Sunday school tomorrow (note to self: find bag of feathers for discussion of the Holy Spirit) and all the get-ready-for-the-week stuff that goes on Sunday afternoons. Besides, if I'm going to be sick I insist it be on a work day.

It's precisely these kinds of days - cool gray and feeling unwell - that turn my mind to garden plans. Anyone whose ever bought so much as a ball of twine from a garden supply firm finds themselves buried in catalogs this time of year and I am no exception. Inevitably, I fill out order forms with all kinds of exotic flora - achilliea!, Liatris spicata - and just as inevitably end up doing the same old thing. I have neither the time nor the inclination to coddle a lot of decorative gardens, however much they're appreciated, so the usual purchases of bulkpack impatiens, petunias and alyssum usually suffice while any growing from seed happens in the vegetable patch (beans, zucchini, radishes and so on - all reliable workhorses).

This year I'd like to try something new, something not enabled by the mere completely filled-out order form, something that requires more heart and less cash. But what? I'm tempted in a thousand directions by three books intended to introduce children to the joys of gardening. Turns out they're just as handy for stuck-in-a-rut adults.

Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots by Sharon Lovejoy includes some very clever ideas for gardening with children, emphasizing plants that grow quickly and produce some "consumable" result - bathing with an herbal blend, making musical instruments from gourds, and so on. I've made bean pole tee pees before but her sunflower house variation is so sweet and so much of the kind of summer magic I'd like my kids to remember that I literally started hopping up and down in my seat, eager to begin sketching out just how to do it. Lovejoy's directions for growing potatoes in galvanized buckets is nothing short of miraculous - I've read how easy it is to grow potatoes but every direction I've ever ready left me scratching my head, wondering what "magic happens here" was left out. Lovejoy is clear and concise and perfectly understandable.

The Children's Kitchen Garden by Georgeann and Ethel Brennan is a more traditional garden book, less moonbeams-and-magic than Roots. It's charm to me is that it describes an actual garden, grown by actual children - no theory, in other words. The bulk of the text discusses the requirements of a host of vegetables and herbs and the included recipes could be well understood by children older than, say, six or seven (with grown-up help).

The Enchanted Gardening Book by Alice Herck rounds out my current garden inspirations. The projects are more basic than those in Roots and it includes much less practical information than Kitchen Garden - it's magic is that it seems to call to an older time, when people did such things as make rose petal beads, when they memorized poems at the behest of the governess, and give tea parties using real china for dolls and teddy bears. I'd love to know more about the author and her motivation for producing this lovely, nostalgic book but neither Google nor authorsearch turn up anything.

With these three books by my chairside I am motivated to do things differently at last. I don't need more seeds, I realize. I've already got bean seeds for tee pees and sunflower seeds for a house (with pumpkin - I have those seeds, too - furniture). I've already got seeds for 4 O'clocks and snow peas and Easter Egg radishes and patty pan squash - not to mention everything I need to make sure that the cherry tomatoes grow within reach of snacking kids' hands or that there are ample paths between rows of strawberries. All I needed was to see what I already have in a new light, the garden equivalent of those people who will come rearrange your furniture, showing you the new decorating options you were too hidebound to see (or, my favorite, those fashion experts who come to your house to show you new ways to wear your own clothes).

Like with so many things in life, what I needed was exactly the same as what I already have. Funny how that works out.

2008-02-05T20:52:00.000-05:00

One of the questions I receive most often concerns where I find the recipes I use for jams and pickles. With more and more attention being paid to seasonal enjoyment of locally-grown produce there is also a great interest in preserving whatever excess is available. This makes a great deal of sense to me and I have often declared that my interest in canning and other methods of preservation have less to do with saving money than it does with having better - in every sense - products for the money I do spend. My pickles don't contain artificial food coloring, my jams are free of high-fructose (or any) corn syrup, and my mushrooms aren't processed a world away from my own kitchen. None of these variables guarantee perfect food every time, of course, and that I truly enjoy the time involved is an excellent bonus.

Since I've begun chronicling my canning adventures (way back in 2002), I've seen a marked increase in interest in canning among people who may not have ever before considered it. In exploring that interest, the first question is often what do I need. The second question is what do I make? I insist to all comers that we ain't doin' your Grandma's canning here, but if this is food preservation for a modern cook with modern sensibilities, were are the good recipes?

Very good, basic recipes can be found in every box of pectin and on every carton of jars. These tend to be very straightforward - strawberry jam, dill pickles and so on - and consist of just a few steps. These days I've pretty much left pectin behind in favor of other types of jams (I don't make much jelly of any kind) but I still maintain that a new canner could do worse than to buy a box, read the insert, give it a go and see what happens. Once you've more or less got the hang of the recipes that come with your gear, you can branch out a bit.

The mother of all canning books surely is the Ball Blue Book of Preserving. I don't actually own one myself, but I've had a bash at a read and it really is very comprehensive. The recipes are meticulously prepared and cover just about every type of product one could conceivably produce. It's a little heavy on old-fashioned varieties for my taste (and really heavy on the much-avoided sweet-and-sour stuff) although one could certainly do worse to start out.

I adore Edon Waycott's Preserving the Taste, which is sadly out of print. The blueberry marmalade is a standard in my kitchen, as is her marinated mushrooms. Ms. Waycott specializes in providing jams to restaurants in southern California and so she uses a number of fruits not available to me, but I don't hold this against her because her text very clearly demonstrates how to use what you have to make something truly delicious.

Another out of print gem is Helen Witty's Fancy Pantry. I Google Mrs. Witty from time to time hoping to find that she - or a fellow fan - has put together an omnibus website, but no. Anyway, from jerk sauce to hot sauce to melba sauce, Fancy Pantry offers some kind of nibble or condiment for ever imaginable occasion and scores of little treats to enhance even the plainest, most workaday meals. I can't recommend it enough.

If the abundant creativity of Waycott and Witty don't tempt you, look to the classics Stocking Up and Putting Food By. How the authors of these books manage to keep updating and keeping new editions coming, I'll never know, but they do and I am forever grateful. Beginning with the science of food preservation and ending with recipes for a nice selection of outputs, neither will steer you wrong and both should have a place on a canner's shelf.

Then there are the surprises, the sources you couldn't predict and which in my experience provide the neatest little recipe treasures. Community cookbooks often hold a jam recipe or two and these can often be relied on quite seriously - no one submits a bad recipe to the preschool cookbook committee, do they? And last year my girlfriends and I decided to use the last of the blackberries and peaches to sort of wing a jam, just to minimize waste and leftovers. The result was incredible and something that I only serve very, very special guests. Not all experiments work so well - my flirtation with Orangina jelly never panned out (and, truthfully, the whole idea kind of amazes me - what was I thinking? I can only blame the fact that I was pregnant at the time) but I'm still thinking that beer jelly holds interesting promise.

So you never know. Start somewhere, master the basics and develop a sense of what can be done safely and then...well, just about anything is possible. I hope that when you develop that killer jam or noteworthy pickle you come back to share the news with me.

2008-02-03T20:58:00.002-05:00

I battled a headache for much of the morning today. I say battled not out of any sense of drama (although goodness knows I surely posses such a thing, in generous amounts) but because all my usual remedies - caffeine, protein, hiding in a dark and silent room, copious OTC pain relief - did little to diminish the pain.

While huddled in my dark bedroom whimpering like a puppy, I wondered why my kids' love of onomatopoeia rises in direct proportion to any pain I might be experiencing. The first twinges behind my right eyeball bring an immediate need for a toy earth mover to back up across the family room (beep, beep, beeeeeeeeep). By the time little silver flashes cross my field of vision, an ambulance speeds its way to an emergency at the domino run (oooooh-waaaaah, oooooh-waaaaaah). When I'm ready to weep, tears falling in unison with the pulsing in my temple, there is inevitably a Lego tower in need of demolition (petchoooom!). It is a most vexing phenomenon and something I find really odd - I swear that the little ambulance never sees any action unless I am about to take a drill to my head, a la Maximilian Cohen.

Anyway, all is quiet now and it turns out all I needed was a little time and the distraction of the first nice-ish day this year. We had the kids run around in the mud a bit and managed to soak up some vitamin D conversion rays ourselves, coming inside just in time to whip up a few snackies and sit down to the ~~big~~ pretty dang boring game.

Among the treats turned out post-headache were a batch of wings inspired by the Crock Pot Blogger Lady's sweet and spicy wings. Being from the greater metropolitan Buffalo, New York area as I am, I find the idea of "sweet and spicy" wings sort of, well, icky. But! It was her method that intrigued me. Wings can be tricky and there are all sorts of opportunities for failure - they may be soggy, chewy, too hot (as in no flavor, just heat) and so on. And? Word to the uninformed: there are no "flavors" of Buffalo wings. Buffalo wings are the flavor. Sweet, spicy, teriyaki, whatever, sure. They're your flavors. But please, don't ever let me hear you talk about all the kinds of Buffalo wings you ate at happy hour. Good?

Moving on, then. The original recipe came from, of all places, the Semi-Homemade corner of the universe and I have to give props where props are due: this is a really clever method of preparing the wings and solves a lot of the problems home wing-makers have long faced.
(Totally unrelated aside: As I type this, the NFL has ruled that one more play must be run to complete the Super Bowl. Bill "Not A Cool Guy" Belichick has left the field, having apparently realized somewhat belatedly that no amount of creative rule interpretation can guarantee a championship team. Yes, it sucks to be 35 seconds away from a perfect season and have it blown to pieces. Really, though? Walking away like that before the game is truly over? My four year-old manages better sportsmanship.)

What was that about moving on? Yes - solving problems. The whole broiling the wings before a nice long soak in the sauce is a lovely alternative to frying or broiling alone. Frying at home is messy and broiling alone deprives the wings of depth of flavor. I broiled my wings in a single layer for about 20 minutes at a fairly high setting and then put them and the sauce in the crock on low for a couple hours. After this treatment, the wings were crazy tender but a leeeetle soft in the skin for me. A second 15-minute broil (on low this time) solved that problem nicely and a toss in a bit of the leftover sauce made an excellent batch, good enough even for this hardened Buffalo born-and-bred wing snob.

But what about the sauce? Simple. One part unsalted butter to three parts Frank's Red Hot, with a tiny splash of white vinegar for additional added kick and a smidge of ground black pepper just for fun. The good people at Frank's make a pre-mixed wing sauce that may be lovely, but homemade is easy and tasty so why not make it fresh? Oh, and also? Tabasco sauce, another fine peppery product, is great for many applications but isn't the best choice for your Buffalo wing needs. Other sauces, maybe, but not the Buffalo.

Now that my headache is gone, the game over and the wine glass empty while the work week looms it's time to call a it a day. Sweet dreams, everyone.

2008-01-30T21:36:00.000-05:00

I'm here, just a bit overtaken by events. Should be back this weekend, probably Sunday after the Girl's birthday party and the resolution of a small amount of familial drama.

And then? I want to talk about All Recipes a bit, gelatin desserts, my favorite canning books and why I want 2008 to be the Year of the Dinner Party.

2008-01-10T19:08:00.000-05:00

This woman has much more ambition than I. Much more. She has resolved, in that New Yearsy kind of way, to use her slow cooker every day and post the results every day. Stunt blogging can be really fun and interesting (see also: the original Julie/Julia Project) or boring and sanctimonious (see also: No Impact Man). This has some potential, I think, for hitting me in a few interesting spots: cooking, family, money, creativity, etc., etc., etc. I like that she, so far at least, uses real food (marshmallows for the sweet potato casserole notwithstanding) and seems to avoid cream 'o whatnot condensed soups and the like. Definitely some possibilities there.

Finding the blog was good timing since I have been trying hard to cuddle up to my own slow cooker without much success and if it weren't for tonight's modest triumph with a sausage and potato experiment, I might have abandoned the thing altogether. It truly is amazing how one can throw some quartered red potatoes, a diced onion, a few sausage links and a bit of veggie broth into a ceramic pot and come home to a dinner that's, more or less, completely prepared.

Of course, after nearly six years of blogging (six years!) I'm still wretched about remembering to take pictures of things. Trust me, though, it was actually kind of yummy and not at all the sort of shredded-meat-with-soft-carrots thing that I've well mastered and come to dread. Yes, I'd say the slow cooker thing is looking up.

Can Can Girl

2008-01-05T13:17:00.003-05:00

New and experienced canners alike can be confused on the subject of gear. After all, newbies are new and the experienced among us can become hidebound by familiar methods. Home canning as we know it today hasn't been around so very long, after all, and it is just as influenced by science and technology as anything else. Methods change (witness new USDA recommendations for tomato processing times), as does fashion - you don't see much in the way of watermelon rind pickles these days but I get more hits for tomatilla salsa than anything else.

When someone asks me for recommendations for getting started with canning, I try to keep things simple and few in number. There are hacks and homespun ways to get around almost all of them, but I think that they're better accomplished by confident canners and do suggest that new enthusiasts stick to at least a minimal complement.

First: jars. I recommend Ball (or -type) canning jars. There are other varieties of jars but these are likely to be the most recognizable to those of us in the U.S. They are strong, will last for years with proper treatment (save a few losses here and there) and can also be used in the freezer. They take a two-part "dome" lid, the rings of which can be used over and over again (in fact, the you only need the rings to set the seal - once a jar is sealed you can take the ring off and store the jar without it, using the ring on the next jar to be processed).

For my money, the best canning kettle is one intended for canning. You can buy them with the rack included, and replacement racks are available. I've had my kettle for eight or nine years now and I'm ready to purchase a new rack. It is possible to use a spaghetti pot and wrap your jars in tea towels for cushioning but, even though I myself have done so (for quarter-pint jars) it's not the kind of thing that I think that newbies ought to do. If you already have a pot that will fit the rack dimensions, by all means spring for just the rack.

Then there are the little things, like a jar lifter, funnel, sterlizing rack, and magnetic lid lifter. Of all of these, I only bother with the jar lifter (although I often use folded towels instead) and funnel. The lifter is useful for righting tipped jars or fishing jars out of the kettle if the filled rack is too heavy to lift and a funnel is very good for filling jars without making a mess of the rims, which could interfere with the seal. A canning funnel is sized just right for Ball-type jars, too, and worth the expense in my opinion. The others...bah. Not worth it to me, but your mileage may vary. Once you have an idea of the kids of things you like to make, specialty stuff like cherry pitters and apple corers and food mills enter the picture. Hold off of these at the very beginning or borrow them unless you know for 100% certain you're going to want them and consume the products to which they contribute.

You can buy kits of various kinds that incorporate some or all of this gear. There are several online providers, as well, or you can check your old-timey hardware store. I routinely by lids at our locally-owned hardware place and I've been known to zip into the much-dreaded Wal-Mart in a pinch (although it seems to me that they are selling less in the way of reusable gear and more in the way of canning seasoning mixes). Several supermarkets in my area carry lids, rings and jars in their housewares aisles, too.

Like many hobbies, even practical ones, the start-up costs for canning aren't a trifle. I'm not sure I really save money through canning, although I'm pretty confident that I'm able to produce very high quality products for an excellent cost, not considering the intangibles of being able to deal with lots of homegrown or otherwise inexpensive produce. Since I use my jars for freezer storage, too, I think that helps me avoid food waste as well. Once people find out that you're canning, you will likely receive lots of jars - for some reason people have them in their basements a lot - and I've scored a few from Craig's List and FreeCycle. I buy lids all year 'round to avoid a large outlay in July through September - more of a psychological help than a real financial one.

If you're just starting out, it may be worth pitching in with friends for the gear and a few dozen jars and sharing the work of your first canning sessions. Sharing the work of chopping and boiling and mashing is a great way to learn and until you know if you'll be canning year 'round or wanting to produce a lot of your family's food in this way, you may as well go co-op on the equipment.

Next time, I'll make my website and book recommendations, and talk a bit about how to get one's hands on stuff to can.

2008-01-04T19:33:00.000-05:00

Now that the Christmas decorations are, more or less, put away for the next 11 months and we're all struggling to remember to write '08 on our checks, let's talk about resolutions. Not *my* resolutions, mind, but yours. You know, the ones that you actually made a few months back rather than those from just the other day (perhaps forgotten already) and which involved getting organized for this year's gardening and canning seasons. I know that there must be lots of these resolutions out there because I see the referrals which read along the lines of "is it too late to start a garden" (in August, in the northeast of the U.S.) or "making strawberry jam at home when strawberries out of season" (in October) or even "what canning equipment do I really need" (this one and its varients happen all the time). Now that the garden catalogs are starting to arrive - I don't know about you, but I find these infinitely more tempting than any pre-Christmas gifty catalogs - we've got a good time to talk about the whys and wherefores of the whole business.

Gardening and canning are, of course, two entirely separate activities although they have a significant overlap for some people. Then there are related topics like dehydrating and freezing and u-pick and subsets such as container gardening and vertical gardening and seed saving and on and on. So what I thought I'd do is sort of lay out my system, the equipment I use and how I organize things and then try and get a bit of a conversation going about your methods and maybe we can all share a bit and come away with more info than we started with. Sound good? I'm not an expert in these matters, but someone needs to go first and seeing as this is my blog it may as well be me.

I'll start with canning and other food preservation stuff, because for me this part drives the gardening (for others the reverse may be true). In the coming week I'll touch on canning equipment, garden prep and how I choose what to grow, and some of my favorite garden and canning hacks.

Freezing: Our regular old top-of-the-fridge freezer holds the day-to-day stuff like yeast, unflavored gelatin, meats I intend to use within two or so weeks, roasted garlic, and gallon ziplocks of corn kernals, green peppers and peas. Our stand-alone freezer keeps flours, farm- and bulk-purchased meats, some bulk baking supplies, broths, tea and coffee, and veggies frozen for the longer-term (green beans, bell peppers, peas, cut and sauteed mushrooms, among others).

In addition to the freezers themselves, I use (and reuse and reuse and...) a good number of ziplock-type freezer bags and glass canning jars (be sure to leave expansion room in the jars, otherwise they WILL crack). For the jars, a cleaned used flat lid can be used inside a ring - you never want to reuse a flat lid when canning but I routinely use them for freezing purposes where the seal isn't as important as just keeping air away from the food.

Freezer season starts in the spring, when I start to mash up strawberries for frozen puree. By the time strawberry season ends I try to have several quart bags of puree for muffins, waffles and smoothies. Then we move onto cherries, blueberries and raspberries - each of these can be individually frozen on a cookie sheet before sweeping into a freezer bag for storage. Cherries do well if you can pit them (a cherry pitter is one of my few specialty kitchen gear possessions) but it's not necessary.

By the time I'm well into fruits, veggie freezing begins. Shallots can be peeled and stored in a large Mason jar and trimmed snow peas are easy to freeze. Corn is sheared off the cob and frozen on a cookie sheet before storage in a gallon freezer bag (it's then a simple matter to pull a cup or two out of the bag for cornbread or chili or whatever) while other ears are quickly simmered and then cut in half for freezing on the cob (the kids love this), peppers are cored and sliced, green beans trimmed and cut. Hot peppers are sliced before freezing. Roasted eggplant puree, smooshed pumpkin and shredded zucchini round out the freezer storage.

Dryer: The dryer is a new addition to my food preservation repertoire, one that I'm rapidly coming to appreciate. This year we dried cherry and plum tomatoes, cherries and apples. They've been very useful for quick preparation (one appetizer I adore: dried cherry tomatoes rehydrated in warm balsalmic vinegar and skewered with slices of chorizo and cubes of manchego cheese - bliss!) and products I'm hoping to continue this year. It would be cool to experiment with dried corn and mushrooms, so they're on my list as well.

Canning: At the moment, I focus strictly on water bath processing. This method is suitable only for food products with an acidity sufficient to render them safe for storage, a concept that is constantly evolving as the natures of food items change along with our understanding of food-borne pathogens. I've written before about my approach to risk management in this area - some will not agree with my take on, say, tomatoes. I'm o.k. with that. Differing thoughts on risk management will result in differing canning lists, too.

I usually have three or four kinds of jam on hand (strawberry, blueberry, peach and mango are favorites), as well as crushed tomatoes and roasted tomato sauce. Pickles include dilly beans and carrots, marinated mushrooms, kosher dills, jalapenos and occasionally brussels sprouts. Then there are sauces and condiments: tomato and tomatillo salsa, jerk sauce for marinades, chocolate sauce and preserved lemons. Fruit products include applesauce, pear sauce, whole cherries and diced peaches.

This is about it in terms of that I try to "put up", as they used to say. Things are slow right now with only jerk and chocolate sauce and preserved lemons to pay attention to. Then there'll be a break for garden prep (which I'll cover in an upcoming post) before the strawberries come in, after which things move faster and faster until September and October when I'm a quivering mess of tomato- and apple-based canning stress.

No matter how busy I get, though, I don't seem to be able to make "enough" of anything. This time of year I look around on the shelves and realize that we're out of so much already - and I don't like it. My own resolution is to try and do more - to not crash out on the sofa after six consecutive nights of canning crushed tomatoes, to go for the seventh and eighth and ninth if I can and the tomatoes are available. I resolve to not sleep in on Saturday mornings in August when corn is abundant at the farm market, knowing that come February I'll want it for chili and cornbread to warm a long, dark night.

2008-01-01T21:43:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year, Internet friends. I hope that 2008 brings us all health and peace most of all. A few smiles, too, of course but mostly health and peace.

I spent yesterday, the final day of 2007, doing more or less two things. I turned 39 years old and I attended my grandmother's wedding.

My grandmother's first wedding took place when she was seventeen years old and the celebration was enabled in good part by the pooling of ration coupons amongst friends and her intended's eight older siblings. My mother was born within a year while her father was, as they said at the time, somewhere in Europe. She'd be nearly three years old before he father came home and the newlyweds would be together again.

I was a child when my grandfather died and I'd be surprised if my youngest sister has any memories of him at all. For most of my life, my grandmother insisted she would never remarry, that she liked her independence and hard-won ability to look after herself. There would be a few gentlemen friends to squire her to the movies or to the diner for supper, and the occasional fancy dress reunion of this or that warship but in the main she was on her own and abundantly available to her four children, eleven grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren.

And then she met (on a blind date) a man she not only would consent to marry, but offer her consent with such an alacrity that fairly shocked the entire family. Shocked we may have been, but we were all there present and quite literally cheering her on.

Very shortly after the ceremony the groom's son bundled up his young daughter and prepared to hurry back to his wife, who was too close to giving birth to travel safely or comfortably. He'd received a call that her contractions had begun in earnest and predicted that perhaps the time was near. With this is mind I shared with my grandmother and her new husband at my own leave-taking, some hours later, my realization that they would soon be jointly the grandparents of thirteen grandchildren ranging in age from infancy to 39.

Today I tried to explain to the Boy that very few children get to attend their great-grandmother's wedding, a notion that he of course couldn't quite grasp. I went on to tell him how lucky we are that she is so healthy and active and independent. "But Mommy," he said, "She's very pretty and not very old at all. Why wouldn't she be active?" His sister chimed in with the conviction that the bride must really be a princess and I saw that it must be true what is sometimes said about the very old and the very young, that the circle of age comes 'round on itself so that those who are truly left out of an understanding of life and love are those in the middle. The 39 year olds, for example.

2007-12-22T09:10:00.000-05:00

Back in September when I first started thinking about clothes and my wardrobe and what I might like to do about my increasing dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs I was wary of the possibility of doing what I thought as too much thinking about the subject. I didn't want to become one of those women, those whom I have judged in the past to be over concerned with appearances or expenditures, who (I assumed) didn't dress to please themselves or those closest to them but rather other women in some vast public fashion show where only the rich and the beautiful (two things I am not) survive and the rules are rigged that way deliberately.

And then I got over myself and remembered that women (and men, now that I think more on it) have been adorning themselves since time immemorial. Berries crushed for the juice to be used on lips or cheeks, henna, kohl, and all manner of oils and salves served our ancient sisters in the same way that anything from Sephora serves us and I don't doubt that as soon as someone figured out a way to get a new dye color by smashing an as-yet unsmashed plant that a new color flax or wool or whatever became all the rage in the village.

Thus rationalizing my newly emerging interest in my own appearance, I pressed on to find an extraordinary trove of resources to inform my thinking. I haven't come to any real conclusions yet about what to change or how to change it, although I am taking ongoing inspiration from, in no particular order:

1) House Art Journal: Regina Doman writes on many subjects, including how she organized her wardrobe to satisfy the requirements of her busy life with "just" 35 thrifted components. Regina's and my needs aren't really similar, but I am excited about the possibility of applying a true, intentional, mindful organization to my closet. Using Mrs. Doman's categories as a springboard, I'm tossing around the idea of using four for myself: dressy/festive, church/professional, outings/casual, and (in a nod to one of the Boy's favorite television shows) Dirty Jobs.

2) Bombshell Beauty: A chatty blog taking the position that enjoying beauty and fashion needn't be the sole province of the slender (or rich). The sensibility is one younger than I might desire for myself and I like that it teaches me that throwing money at the problem doesn't make it go away. Bombshell Beauty mixes things up in a way that I find interesting and informative.

3) Fat Chic pulls no punches when it comes to plus size fashion, beauty and health. With advice for handling retailers, researchers and even family who would treat the curvy crowd as lesser citizens, Diana Rajchel urges women to be more than the culture would have them be. Ms. Rajchel actively strives to build up micro-businesses and artisans, something I find really cool. Say no to cookie cutter dressing!

4) Fussypants: Fussypants is a very popular blogger of whom I have only recently heard. She has contests, she gives away prizes, she's amusing and la la la, but what I found truly astonishing is her Fight the Frump series. Now, I don't love it all (and people who know me well will now precisely the bits I don't care for) but mostly the series is a nice kick in the pants for girls like me who are more inclined to wear something because it's clean than for any other reason. Sure, I'm no longer young and have an alarmingly high-numbered birthday bearing down on me but I've still got some fight in me and I'm going to use it against the Frump.

5) Wardrobe Refashion: Now this, I love. Wardrobe Refashioners take a pledge that for the duration of a pre-determined time frame (three, six or twelve months, I think) they will not purchase off-the-rack clothing but instead provide "new" items to their wardrobes by making from scratch or "re-fashioning" existing garments. Some of the participants are inspirational hardcore sewers whose creations send me into fits of awe, others are working their way through as I would - tentatively and perhaps with a little frustration. Reading their accounts of refashioning has prompted me to look at some of my own wardrobe duds in a new light and I am hatching plans to take the sleeves of one shirt and the bodice of another to create something I might wear out of two things that I categorically won't but which I am too cheap to throw away.

These are the women I've adopted as karmic sisters in my own closet-related battles. Hipsters, goth chicks, religiously devout moms, girls-about town...and me. Despite our outward appearances and the ways in which we lead our lives it seems to me that we are closer under the skin by our attention to what we wear on the outside of it and I have learned much from each of them.

2007-12-15T09:54:00.000-05:00

Point 1) I just slid a "peppermint" cake (half red velvet, half white, swirled together) into the oven - the proper three layers now possible through the rummage-sale acquisition of a third (and fourth) nine-inch cake pan - and the kids are watching a rapidly failing VHS* copy of Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas**. I ought to be, I don't know, cleaning or something, but instead I'm here while trying to wrap my head around today's marketing list (peanut butter - not the good no preservative kind, it's for cookies - sour cream, graham crackers, frozen spinach, cider and something else that I'm sure to forget.

Point 2) "I need to remember to take a crow bar to church tomorrow," mused Brainiac last night. Now that has got to be one of the funniest things anyone has ever said to me. What on earth?

Point 3) My parents are, as I type this, preparing to attend one of the White House Christmas parties. Now, I'm not what you'd call a fan of the current administration (come to think of it, I can't recall being a fan of any administration but I'm hard to please like that), but I surely would love to take a gander at the gingerbread White House. I saw one being made on Food TV last year and - wow - is that cool. Anyway, this is special for my parents and I'm happy for them. Hope the Secret Service remembers to count the spoons when they leave 'cause my mom has a thing for spoons and who knows what she might hide about her person. Kidding! Kidding! My mom is a very moral and upstanding citizen. Ask anyone. You - with the earpiece - I'm talking to you. Don't touch my mom.

Point 4) I had hoped to make a batch of both jerk sauce and chocolate sauce but have come to realize that my personal sanity and overall well-being hinges closely on waiting until after Christmas. Things like jerk sauce are great winter-time canning projects since they rely much less heavily on warm-season ingredients. And then there's marmalade which can be made with all kind of winter citrus. So if you, like I, have not yet put away the canning kettle there's no real reason to go to the trouble now. Might as well leave it out and make up a batch of something or other when you have a less-than busy moment.

Point 5) My last post shared some of our Advent traditions. What I didn't talk about is one tradition that I've decided to cancel, at least for this year - the new pajamas for Christmas Eve thing. My kids don't need pajamas and buying some anyway would require a shopping trip I don't intend to make. We're a little light on hand-me-down, thrifted and clearance pajamas for warmer weather, though, so maybe I'll revisit this as an, I don't know, Easter tradition or something. Another key part of mothering sanity is, in my opinion, knowing when to let go of something that at first blush seemed unletgoable.
*My parents for years had one of those huge console-type stereos. For most of my childhood the stereo cabinet served as storage for candles, crayons and random household flotsam because the turntable rarely worked, except at Christmas. Yep, our own Christmas miracle. Turns out that my adult household experiences a similar technology-related holiday phenomenon in our VCR, which only works reliably at Christmas to show not only Emmet Otter but also a Finnish production entitled Santa and the Magic Drum which involves a Shaman who wants to be an elf. Those Finns, now they have themselves some Christmas spirit. Shamans! Indeed.

**Did you know there's, like, heated controversy over the DVD offerings of Emmet Otter? It never fails to amaze me the things over which otherwise rational people will argue.

2007-12-12T20:20:00.000-05:00

We've had such a delightful couple of weeks around here that I'm fairly tempted to pinch myself. Sure, there's been the usual frustrations, kid shenanigans, sniffles and forgotten trash days, but in the main we've all been all frolicky and festive and I have to say it's rather nice.

I'm not super dogmatic on the point of holiday traditions, but I am finding as the children get older that having a very few provide a nice framework on which they can base their own developing sense of observance.

(By the way, don't hold the red eyes above against me. My kids don't really have the eyes of Satan spawn, merely a mom who can never remember from one shot to the next what to do about them.)

We have the little Advent tree I mentioned in a previous post, where every day one kid (they take turns with some minor scuffling which I now regard as part of tradition) chooses an ornament from a little cabinet and places it on the lighted tree. There are teeny ballet shoes and mittens and wreaths and toy soldiers and it's darling. The last ornament is always a star, and this year the Boy suggested that he and his sister hang it together so they could both have the pleasure of marking Christmas Eve, a proposal that made my heart grow three sizes.

And I do an Advent thing with my vast and varied selection of Christmas books, consisting of everything from A Child's Christmas in Wales to Merry Christmas, Rugrats!" (as yet unread, mercifully). Every night the child who did not choose an ornament for the tree chooses a pre-bedtime story. Among my favorites is The Baker's Dozen, which I (not so) discretely encourage for the night of December 6, St. Nicholas' Day. Even if I don't manage to get my way on this point, it'll come up during the month and I know we'll enjoy the book whenever it's turn arises. Some of our collection belonged to my father in his childhood and I feel honored that my own children enjoy these same stories. It an extraordinary privilege to experience that kind of continuity, one that I hope I am able to encourage them to appreciate.

And then there's the cookie baking. Every year I urge each and every Hot Water Bath visitor to make haste to Christmas Baking and this year will prove no exception. As a bonus you can read, in addition to wonderful recipes for all manner of confection (the recipe for gingerbread is hands-down the finest I have ever used), stories of my Baking Disasters that I have submitted over the years. This year I will attempt zimsterne, cinnamon stars, after being put off forever by Sue's description of the dough as "sticky". This year, I say, is finally the year of the zimsterne.
I adore Christmas cookies and love sharing them with friend, acquaintance and stranger alike. I like the fancy pants fussy kind and the homey ones made with marshmallows or chocolate kisses, the crisp and the chewy, the iced and the plain. I love them all and have yet to meet a cookie that I could not embrace as perfect.

So while many of us here in the northeast U.S. await tomorrow's freezing rain and sleet my heart remains warm.

2007-12-06T20:23:00.000-05:00

Among the crudest responses one can make in civil discourse is to say, when confronted with dissent, "Oh, but I didn't mean it that way."

Crude, inelegant, and just not all that bright. And yet.

Oh, but I didn't mean it like that. I heard from two pals, one in an e-mail and one in a comment, shortly after making my last post, each expressing an appreciation for Advent in such a way that made me reread my post and think, "Egads! I've left out a few nouns or verbs or perhaps even an entire paragraph somewhere."

I don't know what went wrong only that something did, for I adore Advent in ways large and small and regret falling down so thoroughly on the job of defending the honor of a season I find so pleasing.

Onward.

2007-11-29T20:29:00.000-05:00

There hasn't been all that much going on lately. A typical case of blogger's block for someone who is even less interested in writing about my atypically quiet life than you are in reading about it. It's all been very workaday around here and, frankly, kind of nice in that regard.

I'm enjoying the calm mostly because I know it will not last. Brainiac is doing a spot of travel next week, the social calendar is filling up in a very agreeable way with lots of Advent, Christmas and New Years fun and there's nothing like a solid month of baking and crafting to put a smile on my face. And then there's the gingerbread party and the church craft fair, the preschool Barnes & Noble night and, my favorite, the Sunday afternoon carols and lessons at church. Lovely stuff, all, but nothing that could ever be described as restful.

A colleague jokingly accused me of undermining the team by responding, when asked, that "[my] shopping" is nearly complete. On the one hand, of course, being "finished her shopping" smacks of rushing the season and focusing on the materialistic. I take a different view that sees the month of December as properly being shopping-free, focusing instead on the actual liturgical and spiritual aspects of both Advent and Christmas. By planning ahead I am now free to focus entirely on the giving as opposed to the buying. Plus, Christmas falls at the same time every year, it's not like one cannot plan, right?

Truthfully, I'm not all that bothered (well, not much - see below) about the whole Christmas present thing. It's the memorial of a birthday and we give presents on birthdays. Makes perfect sense to me. What I don't get is the whole presents for Advent thing. Advent is about waiting and hope and gathering excitement over the wonders that are unfolding. And, if can stretch the birthday idea further, we don't give presents to a kid every day for a month while she waits for her birthday now, do we?

There's not much waiting and gathering excitement when there's a present every day leading up to Christmas. (Aside: I am not meaning to pick on this particular blogger, not at all. Her project has turned out beautifully. She's also just the first link that turned up when I googled "advent boxes" - I'm actually impressed that she made them, when commercial versions are popping up everywhere.) We use both an Advent wreath and a small tree that is dressed one ornament at a time throughout December leading up to Christmas. Neither these are particularly necessary either, of course, although they do certainly add to that feeling of anticipation. I've seen the Advent calendars that reveal a chocolates behind their numbered drawers and one year was badly tempted by Playmobil's Advent Calendar (which, I suppose could technically be used year after year if one doesn't have the kind of child who would abscond with all the pieces to integrate into the Lego space station set up he's built in his bedroom). Anyway. My point is that Christmas is the present and lots of piddly (or not so piddly - jewelry?) presents leading up to the day kind of dilute that meaning.

Ah, well. Since I'm on a tear with my cranky old self I should probably just get off my chest the conviction that anyone who believes that his partner needs to be thrilled by the holiday presentation of expensive sparklies and/or automobiles or she will not be happy - neither with him nor the relationship - needs to have drilled into his brain that said partner will likely not be happy in the presence of those things, either. I mean, they're nice and all, pretty to have around and I'm all for them, generally-speaking, but their happiness-inducing qualities are small and very temporary. I just feel so terribly bad for the male of the species this time of year - the full court press from jewelry and car sellers is just so relentless. Relentless.

2007-11-15T19:26:00.000-05:00

I believe there is a word for the phenomenon where one learns a new word and subsequently hears that word all over the place. Not that people are suddenly using the word to reinforce one's advancing vocabulary, of course. As they say (to wildly mix a metaphor), when the student is ready the teacher appears - so now all those helpful word-saying people are like the teacher.

Interestingly, I've recently become very aware of all the things about which I've just learned but to which the entire world evidently beat me. This is always happening to me - I am the one at the cocktail party who says something like, "Oh! Did you hear that Al Gore has made some kind of film about the weather?" - not unlike your dear but befuddled great-aunt, the one who can't keep up with the Thanksgiving dinner conversation and in the middle of your nephew's explanation of his first grade art-music-gym rotation shouts, "Who went to prison" just having caught up on the bit about your cousin's wife from hours prior.

The latest parties at which my arrival has been delayed:

1) Beverley Nichols' entire body of garden and kitchen memoir. Nichols was an incredibly prolific writer whose witty takes on everything from roses to parliament are worth staying home to read. In my enthusiasm for Garden Open Today I sent an excited e-mail to a friend with a recommendation and an offer to send my own copy only to receive a "duh, Marsha" in return, along with snippets of messages which I'd apparently received well into the past that made not of the book's popularity among gardeners. Seems like everyone has made Mr. Nichols' acqaintance but me.

2) We've started a new thing we call "family movie night" and once or twice a month we all pile onto the futon with a bowl of popcorn (eating in the family room? Mom's done craaaaaazeeeee) and watch a, well, family movie. Making liberal use of Gnovies I've been able to "discover" new movies in the way that only a person who hasn't set foot in a cinema in six-plus years can. Virtually my entire family and most of my circle of friends were astonished to learn that I had not, until recently, ever heard of National Treasure which was a blockbuster of some note quite a while back. It was a really fun film. Total nonsense, of course, but nothing that I (a dedicated devotee of suspending disbelief wherever possible - and even sometimes when it's not) couldn't eagerly embrace.

3) I'd always wondered how the needlepoint bloggers 'round about the web made such cool designs on "blanks" (plain napkins, shirts, pillowcases, or whatever). I made a comment to a friend expressing my total admiration that someone could, say, cross-stitch a three-tone lilac onto a linen handkerchief. How could such a thing be possible, I wondered. How could I have been born so utterly deficient in spacial skills that this is completely beyond me? "Uh, Marsha," said A., eyes a-rolling, "You may want to google iron-on needlepoint transfers." So I did and now I know and am deeply relieved that I have not been denied some kind of handcraft skill bestowed upon the rest of the world. I am also now the proud owner of several iron-on cross-stitch alphabets.

4) Just this week I fell in ~~love~~ strong like with a slow cooker. A few key changes around the Hot Water Bath homestead meant that dinner times have lately started to become somewhat lacking in leisure and taste. That my sisters have been singing the praises of slow cookers for years did nothing to sway me to adding one to my own kitchen until faced with either making nice with our changing schedules or starting a diet comprised exclusively of stir-fry. I'm a little disappointed with the "pour in a can of cream of whatnot soup" recipes that are out there but my own experiments have been successful enough that my (again, late) enthusiasm earned me yet more eye rolling and "duh, Marsha" from the other moms at preschool drop-off.

For my next trick, I think I'll call my mom and tell her about this great new television show I've discovered. They take a two teams of people and put them at some remote location, where they compete in all kind of immunity challenges and stuff. It's really neat!

2007-11-14T21:49:00.001-05:00

Still here, just a little cranky and perhaps a wee bit fluish.

Back soon with tales of my new slow cooker (yes, I caved), treating my windows, pumpkin butter v. 2, non-killer toys, how I know that I don't have a big mouth, and the search for a piano.

2007-10-31T20:42:00.000-04:00

Applesauce is simultaneously an ideal project for a novice canner and also a very bad idea for a novice canner. One the one hand, there's only one ingredient (that would be apples) and no tricky timing issues like with jam or jelly. On the other hand you need, in addition to a canning kettle and jars and such, a large pot for cooking the cored* apples, a large bowl into which the softened apples with be ground, a food mill with which to actually grind them**, another bowl for dumping the spent skins out of the food mill and another smaller pot for simmering the lids and rings. Then there are little enhancements like a corer, measuring cup and cutting board, although an argument can be made that the corer isn't strictly necessary. Applesauce also makes a mess - bits of apple get everywhere - much more so than crushing tomatoes, in my experience, and you can easily give yourself a terrible burn with the hot apple flying around.

It's the part about one ingredient that gets new canners, though, and frequently a newbie cannot restrain herself from the idea of heading out to the nearest u-pick orchard and loading up on a bushel or two***. After all, is there anyone who doesn't love applesauce? Moms give it by the ton to kids, very few people are allergic to apples, it can be used by the calorie-conscious as a substitute for any number of things in baking and a bowl of warm with a bit of cinnamon is the very essence of autumn. Plus, since commercial sauce now includes more often than not the much-dreaded high fructose corn syrup or some crazy coloring agent the DIY approach is totally rational.

The process (other than the mess and resulting dishes) is simple: Core* your apples and put them in a large pot (I did half a bushel at a time, each resulting in 10 pints) with about an inch of water. Cover and heat on high, watching closely for scorching. Scorched apples are nobody's friend. Once the apples begin to soften, lower the heat and allow to get pretty gosh darn mushy. When the apples are pretty uniformly soft - and some will have begun to fall apart - remove from heat. Position your food mill over a large bowl and grind away, scooping apples from the pot into the grinder CAREFULLY using a measuring cup. When each scoop is ground down to skins, dump into another bowl and repeat until all the apples are processed. Here, if you wish, you can add a bit of cinnamon or even some of those red hot candies but it's not at all necessary - fresh applesauce is yummy completely on its own. Ladle the sauce into prepared, sterilized jars leaving 3/4 inch of headspace, seal and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes (for pints) or 20 minutes (for quarts). After processing, cool on a rack or folded tea towel - any jars that didn't seal can go in the fridge for more immediate use.

That's it. It took a while and made a mess, but you've just made applesauce and are a hero in many quarters.

* I have an apple corer that removes a half-inch diameter chunk from the apple center. Some people use a fancy contraption that cores and slices the apples all at once. A colleague explained to me that she doesn't bother coring, she just slices the apples in half and cooks them, relying on the food mill to take care of seeds and such. I asked if she's ever had a problem with seeds in the apple sauce and she doesn't. As I really don't enjoy coring apples at all I may consider this approach next year.

** You don't need a food mill if you just want to make the occasional batch of sauce to, say, go with dinner or as a treat for the kids. To make a single-batch, core and peel an apple per person and slice it into a saucepan with just a bit of water. Cook them down in the same fashion as the larger batch and when uniformly soft, pour them into a bowl and smash with a fork. Add cinnamon if you like and there you have a very respectable and easy side dish to go along with pork (traditionally) or just about anything else you can imagine.

*** I use "seconds" - apples that are perfectly good but not quite as ready for their close-up - at half the price of "firsts". A bushel of seconds cost me $22.00 and resulted in 20 pints of applesauce and 6 half-pints of spiced apples, not a huge savings off of retail but a very large savings on what economists call "the intangibles". Your friendly orchardist will have signs letting you know what varieties are good for which uses. For saucing I use a combination that gives me lots of different flavors blended together. My mom likes jonamacs (I think this is what they're called) for the pinky hue they lend to the resulting product. My sauce is the more standard beige but tasty nonetheless.

2007-10-29T20:20:00.000-04:00

"Uh, Hon," began Brainiac as I peeled veggies for last night's dinner, "There will be a frost tonight. Would you like me to pick the remaining peppers? T'would be a shame to lose them."

I mumbled a distracted sure and expressed my belief that I didn't really think that there were all that many peppers left in the garden, that certainly somewhere in the haze of applesauce and pumpkins and whatever else it is that I've been doing I managed to get them all. Whatever, I thought as I poured milk over a casserole of flour and sliced potatoes, if there's a few more we can dry them for pepper flakes for pizzas and pastas. Or maybe I can cover them in chocolate like I saw in that commercial for...what is that commercial for, anyway? No matter. Peppers, fine, whatever.

I was wrong.

This is what Brainiac brought into me. I guess you could say that that it was a pretty good year for just about every kind of pepper that we ever thought of growing. Can we agree to describe this as an embarrassment of peppers? We will dry some, I think - a few the old-fashioned way of stringing them through their stems and hanging in a window and more in the dehydrator OUTSIDE in the mudroom (you know that oft-repeated warning about not wiping one's eyes or lips or nose just after handling hot peppers? Well, drying something in a machine means quickly removing the water and transferring that moisture into the air. YOU DO NOT WANT SPICY WATER RELEASED INTO YOUR HOUSEHOLD AIR for breathing and walking around in. Seriously. Ouch.)

I may also make a bit of hot pepper jam. As a rule, I don't care for spicy-sweet combinations but pepper jam has a nostalgic hook for me in that my paternal grandmother used to make a batch here and there and always remembered to send a jar "back east" in her Christmas box. With a bit of cream cheese on a cracker and a sprig of cilantro, pepper jam makes a nice canape and can serve as a bit of a pick-me-up for an otherwise plain grilled steak. Although it's not something I'd want in the same quantities as, say, strawberry jam, a couple of jars would be nice to keep around. Especially since, clearly, I've got the peppers to spare.

2007-10-26T16:07:00.001-04:00

Regretably, Outlander was checked out (all six copies) when Brainiac went to the library for me. In its stead he brought me something called Blackthorne Cottage wherein the heroine inherits from a kindly employer a tumbledown cottage in a small (quaint, natch) English village where she sets about to correct some sort of problem vexing the Vicar's property committee while (whilst?) also falling in love with the estate agent who wishes to purchases the house from her for less than its value and whose motives, alas, may not be entirely pure. Or something like that.

Luckily, the cool grey rainy-ness we're expecting over the next several days makes for the perfect environment in which to settle in with exactly this sort of book. With it, Shirley Valentine in from Netflix, and the task of producing a large number of Halloween-themed cupcakes for various kid events set before me I figure I'm in for a very cozy, restorative weekend. My original plan for tomorrow included running around to various purveyors of I don't remember what and a schlep up to Ikea, but no. Plan B, now in effect, dictates going nowhere, buying nothing, resting lots. Better, I think.

Mad props go out today to Jenn who suggested the best use yet for the embarassing excess of green tomatoes hanging out on my kitchen table: chopping and freezing them for use in curries. Ding Ding Ding - I think we have a winner. I've been putting off making the mincemeat because I couldn't really see anyone enjoying it outside of my own satisfaction in making something different (to us) and conquering a new recipe and it seemed like such a waste of food, energy and time to create what might well have been successful only in the abstract. So I am taking Jenn's suggestion and chopping/freezing is exactly what I'm going to do and I'm going to do it tonight - to most of the tomatoes, anyway. Coincidentally, I planned on a curry for tonight's dinner but it never once occured to me to include the tomatoes but you can bet at least a couple will make it into the pot. Fab. Thanks, Jenn.

2007-10-18T10:28:00.001-04:00

Well, I think you can put my accomplishments down as "incremental". I did manage to make the pickled green tomatoes and even took a picture to prove it to you. Do you know, though, that pickled green tomatoes don't really look all that nice? I used a cold pack (raw food put into sterilized jars) and at the start they were a brilliant emerald green. After processing they're more a greenish whitish tone and...not lovely. I'm sure I'll appreciate them in winter's martinis where I don't really have to look at their rather ickish color.

With the rest of the green tomatoes, the non-cherry sized ones, I don't know. I had tossed around that tomato mincemeat idea but...I really don't want to end up with a bunch of jars of something that no one's going to eat. I only know one person (my dad) who enjoys mincemeat and he probably means the real thing when he says that. Does anyone actually make mincemeat anymore, or is it all this veggie and fruit business? The recipe is nothing more than a chutney, although a non-spicy one, and it just might be nice in little button-sized tarts at the gingerbread house party. See? I talk myself out of something and then talk myself right back into it again. No wonder I don't get much done. Too busy prevaricating.

And worrying. I haven't yet finished the gift for my oldest sister because I've been so totally exhausted from a few nights in a row of worried awakeness. I come from a long line of overnight worriers. My people, they could have been clog dancers or ice wine makers or a political dynasty but no, their contribution to the world is worry. All night long for nights and months at a time. It is, literally and figuratively, tiresome.

I won't tell you what I worry about - some of it totally legit scary stuff, ~~some~~ most of it ridiculous - as I don't want to set you worrying and don't wish to further imprint the list on myself, but here are some things I thought about in between bouts of breathless panic:

1) Where I might have laid the lavender thread I bought to finish a pillow case for the Girl. The poor girl gets the most incredible knots in her hair from sleeping on cotton. Mom to the rescue (maybe) with lavender satin pillowcases with a bit of Daisy Kingdom fabric peeking out from inside. I could use white thread, sure, but where is the lavender?

2) Would everyone like a bit of chocolate bread pudding this weekend? I haven't made any in a while and it's supposed to be kind of rainy and yucky, if unseasonably warm. Maybe I'd be better off waiting for a colder day.

3) Whether or not I should start reading the Outlander series. I've been very keen lately to find books that won't feed this cycle of worry - I want nothing that Julia so aptly described as "depressing, depressing-but-redemptive, intensely thoughtful, or nonfiction unless it is funny". Where Outlander falls in these requirements I don't know, but people keep telling me I need to read it.

4) Whether Jane Brocket's The Gentle Art of Domesticity is going to be made available here in the States.

5) Why is it, do you think, that last year we had few apples on the apple trees but rather too an abundant a showing from the gingko but this year the reverse was true with lots of apples and mercifully few gingko berries. Those of you know understand what a highly fruiting gingko tree is all about also understand why we're so happy about the switcheroo and probably also get why we're trying to figure out what happened so we can encourage it to happen again next year and the year after and so on.
6) Reading older books and memoirs of days gone by can be very helpful with the worrying stuff. It's very nice to know that despite a drought in France in '49 that convinced the country that the end times where near, coupled with crushing shortages and rationing of just about everything, did not stop Julia Child or anyone else there at the time from enjoying what there was to enjoy, no guilt involved. I also appreciated reading of Delia Lutes' belief that the Christmas celebrations she knew as a child in the 1880s were nothing at all like the "soul killing" consumption-oriented orgies of the "children of today" (Lutes wrote in the 1930s). And in The American Frugal Housewife, Lydia Marie Child bemoans the focus that mothers place on their children's clothing and activities - to the detriment of their useful educations, and that so many of her fellow citizens spend more than they earn trying to match the lifestyle of the wealthy and famous.

In short, it is nice to know that the more things change...and with that in mind, perhaps tonight I will finish my sister's gift.

2007-10-16T13:07:00.000-04:00

I started to put a little list of ongoing and outstanding projects on the sidebar. Perhaps it'll motivate me, I thought, to have a bit of public accountability for my window treatment making, cross stitching, chocolate saucing, candle pouring, wizard cape making self. As the list became longer and longer and longer (this is for projects for which I already have the materials, not the "stuff I wish I could learn to do" list) I didn't feel motivated or accountable so much as depressed. Even so, I don't feel like I have too much to do, just that I haven't organized things (by this I mean "my life") properly (I have to get things out and then put them away and then get them out and...resulting in a whole bunch of stuff that's partially completed. It occured to me last night that I can avoid the problem of having to clean up and then reaccess unfinished projects by actually finishing them. Stress will be further avoided by finishing things in the order in which they need to be delivered - things sent to Buffalo need to be done and wrapped by Thanksgiving, items for local recipients can be worked on through December, food processing trumps all of this. (You are probably as shocked as I that, for these brainstorms if nothing else, the Nobel Committe didn't award me a little something. Where are the awards for achievement in domestic arts and organization?)

Tonight's goal is to complete the gift I'm planning on sending my oldest sister for Christmas. Given its current state, I shouldn't need more than an hour. After that...pickling the last of the green cherry tomatoes. That, too, will be quick, maybe 45 minutes total and not all of that hands-on. If I can stay awake long enough tonight, both of these projects should be well within hand.

Here are some other brainstorms I've recently enjoyed:

1) No matter how beautiful, sweet and delicious, homemade raspberry-infused vodka is, it is still vodka and should be treated as such.

2) I am no longer young and fit enough to ignore #1, above, at anything other than extreme bodily peril.

3) Numbers 1 and 2, above, very likely also apply to the ginger, pepper and mint infusions still bubbling away in the kitchen.

4) If one doesn't, at the close of Christmas celebrations, pack the advent wreath candle holder in the box marked "Advent Wreath" one will not be able to find it for a preschool fundraising committee meeting the following October just by opening said box. Instead, profanity-filled excursions into the third floor storage area will be required and the candle holder will remain unlocated.

5) When a colleague remarks that one lives one's life as if in "an English village in the '50s" it is probably not meant as a compliment. However, it may be the less career-limiting move to treat it as such.

So ends the collected wisdom of Hot Water Bath for today.

2007-10-14T21:01:00.000-04:00

The advent of fall weather found me matching capless acorns with acornless caps and hot gluing the pairs together. What nature won't provide, I am happy to create in a way that seems to me to be closely related to what my decision sciences professor explained as the brute force method.

These are meant, along with the intended purchase of a couple dozen Jack B Little pumpkins, will comprise some sort of activity for the scout meeting we're hosting next week. It'll be too dark for a nature walk so I had the idea to bring a bit of nature inside and let the boys create little autumn dioramas. Really, what could be more natural than hot-glued acorns? With the nuts and pumpkins and perhaps some leaves, grasses and seed pods from elsewhere around the yard I think we'll be in good shape for a perfectly respectable scout activity.

The entire family spent a good amount of time cleaning out the garden today, too. The kids were delighted to pick the remaining green cherry tomatoes and dried bean pods and take down the bamboo poles while their father mulched the plants with the mower and I did my best impression of a porcupine after falling butt-first into a totally new (to me) kind of burr-plant thing. Fun for all.

The bean pods held more than enough seed for next year (to the Girl's amusement, "Mommy! It's food in here!") and there are enough green tomatoes (cherry and otherwise) that I am looking about for canning recipes to use them and which don't involve anything that could conceivably be though of as sweet-n-sour. Maybe a nice mincemeat? Not a clue what I'd do with it after making it, but it sure does sound intriguing, eh

2007-10-09T13:14:00.000-04:00

We've been Netflix customers for some time now, having joined in the first place because we aren't exactly at what you'd call an optimum level of returning rented movies on time. Since we never actually go to the cinema (I haven't been since the first Harry Potter and Brainiac probably since the second-to-last Star Trek) and our public library charges for movies (and is a trigger for the aforementioned not-returning problem), the comparatively nominal Netflix fees are a downright steal and, with nearly 200 items in my queue (the result of years of non-movie goingness) I have settled in for a nice, long relationship with the company.

My feelings on the subject became even more rosy with the discovery that Netflix carries a whole genre that I hadn't even noticed before - something called "Special Interest" - which carries a whole series of Martha Stewart holiday- and entertaining-related DVDs, as well as gardening and spoken word and theater arts and....well, as someone who prefers reading non-fiction, it's like finding a whole new arm of the Dewey Decimal System.

Last night I watched Martha's Halloween DVD, which I found charming (especially the bit about using a keyhole saw to carve pumpkins - doh! never thought of it). I don't generally "do" Halloween, but I like thinking about what I might try if I did. Next up (after we return the Girl's choice of Mary Poppins) is Martha's Thanksgiving disk. And then there's Alton Brown's first Feasting on Asphalt and Julia Child's original French Chef series and Flower Power and...it's just all so great. If possible, I am now even more in love with Netflix.

As a DIY junkie, I might just have found the perfect enabler.

2007-10-03T15:18:00.000-04:00

The recent recall of green beans and other commercially-produced canned goods got me to thinking about the upcoming winter gift-giving holidays and the toy-related recalls. With regards to the parental side of my identity, these recalls hitting me where I 1) feed and 2) delight my kids is really getting just a bit too close to my inner Mama Bear and are hits I don't take blithely. Growing and processing at least some of my family's food and procuring what I can from people whom I recognize and can call by name gives me a feeling - however much of an illusion - of control. Likewise does an alternative approach to gift giving. I may pay a bit more for gifts than I would if I shopped at Stuff*Mart (with thanks and apologies to Madame Blueberry and the rest of the Veggie Tales crew), but what are mere pennies when stretched over the life of a gift that will last for years, possibly becoming an heirloom, or - let's be frank - meets my rather minimum standard of flat-out NOT poisoning the recipient?

So what's a girl who loves giving gifts, who loves determining just the right gift, to do? Here are my Official 2007 Hot Water Bath gift-giving strategies:

1) Thinking about giving less. Not less in terms of thought or even in terms of the number of recipients (I am the daughter of a woman who gave gifts to her favorite restaurant servers and as such I am incapable of not giving presents) but rather in terms of the actual tangible items. The families on your list might enjoy a museum or zoo membership or a cool picnic basket of the kind that can actually be used (with a promise to fill it with a great picnic once spring comes anew). For years when I couldn't purchase gifts for all my girlfriends I instead had a holiday brunch at my apartment. Champagne and smoked salmon at a restaurant is expensive and kind of a hassle. At home they're indulgent and nurturing. If my nieces lived closer, I think I'd give them a tea party. Alas, they're at a distance but I can still give them tea...and special tea cups just for them. Not elaborate, not cluttering, not too much, just special and just right. My father let it be known some time ago that he does not need anything that he has to dust and/or in some other way care for so he usually receives consumables like steaks or wine, or a book (he's a voracious reader) or greens fees. Note to self: talk to Dad about putting together a wish list on Amazon.

2) DIYing wherever possible. This year's homemade gifts on my project list include home canned items (pickled hot peppers, chocolate sauce, jerk sauce) gifted in embellished jars and including recipes and serving ideas, aprons, a wizard cape for my Harry Potter-mad nephew, wreaths, a puppet theater and more. Those who would laugh at or sneer at a made-with-love present do not deserve a place on the gift-list, I think. Even homemade items that miss the mark ought to be received with love and gratitude - effort and love always trump cash. If you fear that a child (or, sadly, an adult) on your list may not be charmed by a homemade whatever in the face of plastic battery-operated madness, persist. As the saying goes, we must be the change we want in the world and even if you're not a knitter (I'm not) or a quilter (I'm not) or a...I don't know...candle-dipper, you surely must have some kind of talent that can be put to good use. I cannot be the only 38-year old in the world who still loves mix ~~tapes~~ CDs, right? And I especially love them with collaged covers.

3) Avoiding mass-market retailers in favor of local shops, artisan-focused web clearinghouses like Etsy and your neighbors who exhibit at the school winter fair. My sisters and I have been known to pick up the occasional thrifted or yard sale item for each other with great success - both are excellent for pretty retro tableware (wine glasses to go with a bottle of local wine, say), jewelry (a nifty broach), books (great frameables can be found in old art books) or even toys (I've bought hundreds of legos at my local cancer-center thrift). The proprietress of my local toy store - they still exist! - knows what is made where and what companies really feel their products and resist such rapid growth as to require lowering quality and sourcing standards. She's the one who turned me onto Maine-made Taurus Toys and their marble run components that work with Duplo.

4) Not gifting for the sake of obligation. We've all been on the receiving end of gifts that were given for no other reason than the giver felt obliged - and it showed. Someday I'll tell you about the present I received that was accompanied by the statement, "I don't know what this is. Some kind of weird jam maybe. Whatever, Merry Christmas." Gifts given begrudgingly are not gifts at all and I'd rather receive heartfelt good wishes over a "here's the present I must give you" any day. A handwritten note of appreciation is yards better than the pre-wrapped random whatsits poorly made goodness knows where, for sale by the scores, not intended to last (or at least not last the year and you can buy another one) and only intended to put a thing in an emotional space that advertisers would have you believe to be empty but really isn't. Buy some substantial writing paper - Crane is nice, but there are lots of others - something heavy that says read this, it's important, get a pen that works (not always a simple proposition, I know) and dust off your best pre-email handwriting. You do to have time. It only takes two or three minutes to write down how much you value someone and the relationship you share. Put on the address and stamp before you stand up from your desk or dining table or wherever and put the finished card with your keys so you will remember it when you next go out.

5) Being practical where called for. Sometimes, delight and whimsy aren't on the menu. That should be o.k. and not something from which to shy. My newly-engaged grandmother and her fiancé have between them decades of acquisitions that they are about to combine into a single household and, while they are quite independent and mobile, getting out and about isn't always the easiest thing. Stamps, a selection of greeting cards, pre-paid phone cards and the like are the things I'm thinking of for them.

There you have it. Reading this, I think that my sister thinks she knows what I'm sending to her house for Christmas and she so totally does not.