I spent my 3 day weekend doing something I love. I made jelly and preserves and canned them. Lots of them. It was hot sweaty work standing for hours at the stove and each night I went to bed with an aching back and a big smile. Something about canning satisfies the gatherer in me. Seeing those jars lined up and hearing them tink tink as they seal in their jars is the beautiful music of home canning.
My canning experience goes back about 50 years. I lived on a cattle ranch in Colorado with my parents and my mother grew the biggest garden I have ever seen to date. My grandmother would fly in from California for canning season. The kitchen would be full of women, all with their assigned tasks of preparation. The kitchen would be hot with fans blowing( no air conditioning in those days) and there would be plenty of iced tea. We felt such pride as the jars of vegetables and fruits lined up and eventually made their way downstairs to the canning cellar. Rows of peaches, green beans, tomatoes, sauerkraut, corn, chow chow, pickles and jellies. Those are the visions of my girlhood; one of a community of women working together.
This weekend, there was not army of women. Just me. Me and my daughter on the other end of Facebook messenger making and canning her first jelly.Times have changed, but the feelings of accomplishment have not. We shared our jars online and complemented each other on a job well done.
My first project was blackberry jelly. Frazier Farms had a sale of $1 a box and I got 18 boxes to make my 12 jars of jelly. It is impossible to describe the wonderful smell of jelly cooking. The sweet fruity aroma filled my house and my neighborhood.
Next...10 pounds of organic tiger figs I got from a local farmer in Vista. I cooked them into 12 beautiful pint jars of amazing fig preserves.
5 pounds of Lilikoi ( from same organic farmer) otherwise know as passion fruit was combined with guava and made into a low sugar jelly that tastes sweet and tart and reminds me so much of the jellies I made in Hawaii. It s beautiful apricot color and the smell lingered in my clothes all day. Lovely.
Lastly, I crushed 18 cups of sweet red ripe California strawberries and made 22 jars of strawberry preserves.
Dedicated to the women before me..and after me.
With love,
K
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