"i hope you like jammin', too"

I am not a gracious gift recipient. Gifts make me feel vaguely guilty and awkward and tongue-tied. The more generous the gift the worse I feel and the harder it is to express my gratitude. So just imagine my reaction when Stephanie passed this flat of blueberries to me after a parent meeting.

I thought she wanted me to take one pint and leave the rest for the teacher. “Those are all for you,” Stephanie said. I stood there for a minute before hearing Evelyn say, “I don't think she gets it.”

Stephanie runs a biodynamic farm in Boonville with her husband Chris. Ever the most tactful person, I'd described her Maiden Blush apples as “edible orgasms” earlier that day. Stephanie is emblematic of what I hope to be like, and what I hope to be doing, when I reach her stage of life. And now she was giving me a whole flat of blueberries.

I didn't know what to say. I think I asked if I could kiss her.

I wasn't sure what to do with them. It would be easy to eat them up within a few days, but when am I ever going to have another flat of blueberries? I wanted to preserve that fleeting flavor. Blueberry jam seemed the most obvious, but I have never liked blueberry jam. Too sweet, too one-dimensional, just like poor-quality blueberries. 

But these weren't poor-quality blueberries. I'd be hard-pressed to find a better-loved blueberry specimen. Combining them with lemon seemed an easy fix for that overwhelming sweetness.

Now that the kids are getting older, I like to spend more one-on-one time with each of them. It doesn't have to be special time doing special things, although that's nice; that time can be spent doing mundane things and it's still special to me. Since I had preserving projects ready to go, I decided to spend the day teaching Isaiah the science of water-bath canning, while reinforcing the arts of fermenting and jamming. 

For now he's absolutely delighted to spend this time with me, but I don't know how much longer I'll have his attention in these things before they become boring chores. As long as he jumps up and down with joy at the thought of chopping ten pounds of tomatoes, I'll take it.

So I gathered our materials and then let him select the music. (One must jam while jammin'.) He just discovered Johnny Cash, and though I can only take so much of the Man in Black, I was happy to oblige. He especially loves the songs with June. Later he requested Rolling Stones. While singing along to "Mother's Little Helper," he looked up at me and asked, completely without guile, "That's what I am, huh? Mama's little helper!" Considering the context of the song, I admit to choking a bit on my coffee, but I assured him that yes, he was my terrific little helper (you and caffeine, dear).

I sure do love that boy of mine. If I think of Willow as a dandelion, Isaiah is a butterfly. He is incredibly easy to be around, sweet, helpful, loving, and very funny, calm and assuring, accepting and compassionate. In other words, he's somewhat my opposite, just like his father. If you follow the temperaments at all, he's a textbook sanguine personality, flitting from project to project until he settles down to sip emphatically from one particular interest, at which time his focus is intense. 

I admit to not always having the patience to work with my kids in the kitchen. Cooking is a meditation and sometimes I need the space to work without having to explain what I'm doing (assuming I could explain). When I can afford to work leisurely, I try to have them with me, so they can see that cooking is a joy, not drudgery, and so they can feel a sense of accomplishment from the task. Learning a skill never hurts, either.

That being said, I must also admit that I don't much like canning. It's hot, messy work, and I hate messes and being hot. I also dislike the flavor of almost all canned food -- the exceptions being tomatoes, dry beans, and jam. A few years ago I borrowed my mother-in-law's pressure canner and put up tomatoes after a friend moved away and left her garden to me. Jeremy and I worked together canning a few dozen pints of tomatoes and some dry beans, and at the end of the process I felt only mildly pleased with our efforts; mostly I felt it was an awful lot of work for something that would be gone within weeks. (I think I'll feel better about it when putting up my own tomatoes.)

I also worried a lot about that pressure canner. I am very clumsy and easily distracted, and a kitchen explosion would not be out of the ordinary for me. (In fact, I caused an explosion in the kitchen just a few weeks ago, when I lit the oven not realizing that the gas had already been on for a while. The kids were very impressed.) True to form, I burned the hell out of my hand yesterday pouring boiling water on myself. Hopefully I have not passed on this trait to my children. 

Isaiah can be far more participatory in the kitchen now that he can handle a knife -- the first and most important kitchen skill, after knowing how to clean as you go along. In fact he can handle a knife better than I can clean as I go along. I am a terrifically messy cook. I can't count how many shirts I've destroyed by spilling olive oil on myself. The floor is at the mercy of broken jars of tomato sauce or smashed grapes or whatever it is I've dropped and then carelessly ignored. Hm, maybe I'm not teaching such good things in the kitchen...

Believe it or not, I'm actually a neat-nick. But when I get going in the kitchen, anything can happen. I won't freak out about the mess until the end.

Water-bath canning is nice for small kitchens, small families, and small ambitions because you don't need much special equipment and you can work in small batches. All you really need is a large stockpot and some canning jars with new lids (rings can be reused). I'd consider a funnel essential, and a jar-lifter is nice, too; although I make do with tongs, that's how I burned my hand.

Teaching canning is basically a biology lesson for kids. "Bugs" live on our food and in our jars and boiling water destroys them so they don't make us sick. It's a fairly basic lesson. Once the canning itself gets going, there isn't much that a child can do safely, but before that s/he can chop, stir, and pour. And of course, even the smallest children can help consume the contents.

I'm still learning all the ins & outs of canning myself. I always assumed that jam recipes call for so much sugar because sugar is a preservative. But a cookbook I just finished reading (Urban Pantry) explains that sugar helps a jam "set" and doesn't affect the safety of the final product one way or the other. Since I don't like very firm jams anyway (I use them most frequently for flavoring plain yogurt), I decided to try cutting back on sugar for these recipes to see how it turned out.

The nectarine jam worked out just fine, but the blueberry jam didn't seem to set, so I decided to use it for syrup instead. But one jar didn't seal, so I put it in the refrigerator, and when I pulled it out the next morning it was nicely thick, maybe just a touch too loose for a sandwich but perfectly fine for toast, yogurt, and pancakes. This jam might just need to be chilled because of the cornstarch.

Blueberry Jam with Lemon Zest
3 quarts blueberries
2 lemons
1 1/2 c. unrefined sugar
1 c. water
2 T. cornstarch dissolved a bit of cold water

Prepare your jars by washing with hot soapy water. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Put a plate in the freezer for testing.

Use a vegetable peeler to remove the lemon zest in strips. Don't worry if you get a bit of pith. Slice the zest into long, thin pieces. Slice the lemons in half and juice them, straining out the seeds.

Combine the blueberries, lemon zest and juice, sugar, and water in a large pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 25-30 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid sticking.

Remove the pot from heat and stir up the jam with an immersion blender. I like to leave it a bit chunky.

Return the jam to a low boil and stir in the cornstarch with cold water. Continue stirring as the jam thickens. Scoop out a spoonful of jam onto the frozen dish and return it to the freezer for a few minutes. If the jam hasn't set (it won't be completely solid but shouldn't run, either), continue cooking down the jam until it tests well.

Scoop the jam into your prepared jars, wipe the rims, and screw on the lids. Don't over-tighten the lids as they need to let air escape. Push a folded towel into the water to cover the bottom of the pot. Carefully insert the filled jars into the water. Once the water returns to a rolling boil, begin counting for 10 minutes of boiling.

Carefully remove the jars from the water bath. Don't touch the lids so as to avoid a false seal. Listen for the sound of the jars sealing. If any of the jars don't seal, just put them in the refrigerator and consume within a month. This jam seems to benefit from chilling before eating.

This recipe makes 4 pints.

I conceived of lavender-nectarine jam because of a recipe for Hibiscus Peaches in Urban Pantry. The peaches are peeled and preserved in a syrup made from hibiscus tea. I think life is too short to peel peaches (or anything else), but I liked the idea of using an herbal tea to flavor a fruit preserve, so I went with lavender for the nectarines. It was a very easy modification and the effect is subtle enough to keep the kids from complaining that their jam "tastes like flowers."

Normally I'd say that you should use the best resources you have for a preserve because nothing can improve the flavor of poor produce. In the case of jam, though, sugar and lemon juice and sometimes herbs can cover a multitude of sins. These nectarines didn't taste that great for fresh eating, but their flaws were easily overcome by processing.

Lavender-Nectarine Jam
1/4 c. lavender flowers
1 1/2 c. water
4 lb. ripe nectarines, chopped
juice of 2 lemons
1 1/2 c. unrefined sugar 

Prepare your jars by washing with hot soapy water. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Put a plate in the freezer for testing.

Combine the lavender and water in a small pot. Bring to a boil, the turn off the heat, put on the lid, and let steep for 20 minutes.

Strain out the lavender and combine the tea, nectarines, lemon juice, and sugar in a large pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring regularly to prevent sticking.

Remove the pot from heat and stir up the jam with an immersion blender.

Return the jam to a low boil. Continue stirring as the jam thickens. Scoop out a spoonful of jam onto the frozen dish and return it to the freezer for a few minutes. If the jam hasn't set (it won't be completely solid but shouldn't run, either), continue cooking down the jam until it tests well.

Scoop the jam into your prepared jars, wipe the rims, and screw on the lids. Don't over-tighten the lids as they need to let air escape. Push a folded towel into the water to cover the bottom of the pot. Carefully insert the filled jars into the water. Once the water returns to a rolling boil, begin counting for 10 minutes of boiling.

Carefully remove the jars from the water bath. Don't touch the lids so as to avoid a false seal. Listen for the sound of the jars sealing. If any of the jars don't seal, just put them in the refrigerator and consume within a month.

This recipe makes 4 pints.

The last project of the day was cultured salsa. This one was spontaneous. We came by these tomatoes from another farming family at the school. I knew we could never finish them -- none of us are very fond of tomatoes for fresh eating, even the very good homegrown ones, but I do like them processed in all sorts of ways. Especially salsa. I could eat salsa with almost every meal.

I'm not going to give my recipe for salsa, because it's not really a recipe and salsa is a very specific condiment that everybody likes in a different way -- with or without garlic, raw or cooked, with or without cilantro, spicy or mild, with or without roasted ingredients, chunky or smooth, and so on. For my salsa I like a really obscene amount of garlic and a good kick from Anaheim, poblano, or jalapeño peppers, though not too spicy or the kids won't eat it. I also put in hefty handfuls of cilantro and plenty of lime juice, and onions are a must, as is ground coriander, and I like it chunky.

Isaiah obligingly chopped all of those tomatoes, singing and smiling all the while -- that boy was born for culinary exploits (especially if the tomatoes "look like butt cheeks").

It's almost embarrassingly easy to culture salsa. It's funny, but before my cultural revolution (snort) I'd accidentally cultured salsa but threw it away because I thought it had gone bad, an easy thing to assume when the lid pops upon opening and the contents are fizzy and taste, well, fermented. Actually, it had gone good -- I just hadn't learned to appreciate it yet!

To culture salsa, stir in one generous tablespoon of sea salt for each quart. My salsa always produces plenty of liquid on its own, but if the veggies are really sticking out above the liquid line you should weigh down the contents (I use a baggie filled with water) or add tomato juice or lemon or lime juice. You can also half the salt and use whey for the rest, if you have some.

Let the salsa stand at room temperature for 2-3 days, until fizzy and delicious. Store in the refrigerator for... well, I'm not sure how long it will last, since it always disappears at an alarming rate, but I'm sure it will stay good for at least several weeks.

 

What's happening in your kitchen?