warning: winter ahead

it has been the most beautiful weather weekend. the temperature was perfect and the fall leaves are at their peak. i think it was the last "transition" we will have before it gets truly chilly and turns to winter. i love fall but i have to confess to a feeling of melancholy about it this year. i don't think i was ready to put my garden to bed or say goodbye to long evenings out on the deck. there is so much futurity, so much growth, so much to look toward in springtime and summer. it is a busy time, full of activities, but somehow it never feels hectic to me, just ultra fun. i'm already getting that hemmed in winter time fear...the what will we do to stay sane and entertained riddle.

to combat this, i came up with a big list of little plans i have for the long, dark winter days ahead. the ideas, so far, are:

+take up cross stitch/embroidery and start a sewing basket for cleo with beginning hoop and tapestry needle and get this nifty little starter sewing deal for flynn.

+have craft play dates frequently with cleo and her little friends. i love to watch what kids can create with minor instruction.

+make big batches of stock and read up on good soup and stew recipes. i love hot soup and fresh bread as a winter time meal.

+perfect roasted chicken. this recipe for cooking the whole bird in coconut milk sounds like a good start!

+brew beer with jaren and seth.

+have weekly reading night with the kids where we read a big stack of books or a bunch of chapters and then listen to a book on audiblekids.com

+eat by candlelight

+take lots of baths. and freeze treasure cubes for the kids.

+enjoy our fireplace and start to teach cleo and flynn about the art of building a good fire (lucky she has two fire masters in her life...grandpa and dad.)

+prepare some special celebration for winter solistice, longest night of the year on december 21: a fire pit, staying up late, and mulled wine will have to be involved.

+organize my iphoto and make more photo books to thumb through and enjoy. warm myself by the light of the mac!

+go through and purge my backlog of magazines once and for all!

+go snowshoeing, maybe even by moonlight, something i've always wanted to try.

+ski at least 5 times. a pretty silly goal considering i live 15 minutes from world class slopes.

+convince someone that they need to take me to hawaii, or other warm locale during slushy grey yucky phase of winter. taking children, optional.

+order specialty plant seeds from seed savers and day dream about spring!

THOSE are my best laid plans. How will you brave the long, cold winter? Tips, tips, pass them my way please!

Canning 101

I don't really do how tos on this blog because I don't feel qualified to give instructions on much! But there is one subject that I feel might warrant a half witted tutorial: canning. I think canning is one of those things that has gone by the wayside needlessly. Canned goods from the store quite simply bear no resemblance to things you can yourself, especially if the things you are canning are fresh and ripe from the garden.

I hestitate to call canning old fashioned because I hate to think of something so smart and sensible as being passe. Before I did any canning, I remember thinking what an arduous process it seemed....behemoth pots of boiling water, submerging something as fragile as glass jars down into it, and then doing something mysteriously called "processing". It seemed complicated, intimidating, and completely unnecessary. I'm happy to report that I am in my third year of canning and I couldn't have been more wrong.

Canning actually is a very simple process and the pay off is huge both in terms of the personal kudos you get when you show up with a jar of homemeade something something at a party, but also in terms of your own family's food supply. When you can a quart of peaches rather than go to aisle 11 for a can of Dole, you are controlling what you and your family eat. If you grew your own peaches, then you are putting the bounty of your harvest to work and creating something that will give your tastebuds immense pleasure in the barren stone fruit winter months. And if you simply bought the peaches at the market, then you are still one upping the Dole variety because you have bought those peaches in season and at their prime, and hopefully supported a local farmer in doing so. The actual peaches you make at home contain less preservatives, less sugar, probably fewer chemicals if said peaches happen to be organic. It's a serious boon to the pantry shelves too. Suddenly you have storehouse shelves worthy of a Martha Stewart set. Pretty little jars all in a row, only instead of being cutsy, these jewel toned concoctions gracing my shelves are pratical too, waiting for the blahs of winter to brighten my spirits and my tastebuds.

The biggest requirements in canning are patience and a chunk of time. But not as much as you'd think. Give a day over to it and you can put up a surprising amount of food. And since it's basically a mindless task once the food you are canning is actually made, I find it to be pretty relaxing, and even better if you have invited a friend to share the time with. One of my favorite canning traditions is to spend a day making and caning salsa with my friend Sally, someone I seldom see. At day's end, not only do we both net a great amount of delicious garden fresh salsa, we have chit chatted the day away and spent quality time together.

My kids are still pretty young to be able to hang with standing next to a pot of boiling water all day but I can see that down the line, this will be a fun family tradition. All of us dicing and slicing and listening to the satisfying pop of jar lids. Come to think of it, a family canning tradition has already been started. For the last two years my Dad and I have made jam with his gorgeous wild plums from Spring City and then give them as Christmas gifts. It is so much fun and we've even started getting a little crazy with our recipe, including hot peppers in this year's version just to make it interesting.

So if you are interested in trying canning, the equipment needed is manageable and pretty low cost. The most important thing you need is a large size pot so you can create a water bath to sterilize and process your jars. Though you can use whatever huge pot you have, I would recommend spending the $30ish to get an actual canning pot because it comes with a metal rack with handles that fit down inside the pot and holds the jars all snuggly and allows you to lift them out of the hot water easily when the jars are done. If you don't want to buy a canner then ask your grandmother if she still has one on the back shelf, or check the thrift stores. (Maybe it is because this is Utah, homeland to food storage afficionados, but I reguarly see canners and lots of jars at thrift stores in town.) But canners are readily available from just about any online retailer you can think of. Once you've got the canner all you need are glass jars, metal jar rings, and a fresh pack of jar lids which contain a wax seal that when heated adheres to the top of the glass jar and seals in all the foody, fruity goodness of whatever you are canning. A funnel or a plastic measuring cup with the bottom cut out is also nice to keep spills at bay when filling the jars. And if your canner doesn't have a rack a jar lifter or sturdy pair of tongs.

In a nutshell, here are the basic steps for canning:

1. Prepare the food, fruit, or jam recipe as directed.

2. Fill canner about 3/4 full with water (or enough so that jars will be submerged and covered with an inch or two of water) and crank the heat up until it comes to a boil.

3. Sterilize glass jars you plan to fill either by submerging in boiling water in canner for 15 minutes, then fill, or run through a quick dishwasher cycle and then use the jars directly afterwards while they are still hot from the drying cycle. This prevents the glass from cracking when you fill the jars with hot stuff.

4. Fill all jars with your chosen yumminess (use little funnel apparatus to prevent major mess) and then wipe rims of jars with a clean, damp towel.

5. Put on lids and then twist metal rings on tight.

6. Fill metal canning rack with jars (or strategically stack loose jars in pot so they don't bang into each other and break.) Lift rack into canner, set timer and process jars for recommended time. I use Ball's chart in the Ball Blue Book to figure out exact times and then I tack on an additional 15 minutes because I live over 6000 feet. I periodically double check the water level in the canner to make sure all jars remain covered by at least an inch of water.

7. When time is up, remove rack carefully from boiling water (or remove jars with a jar lifter or tongs) and line up jars on counter until cool. Listen for the lovely popping sounds the lids make that indicate they are properly sealed and will keep your food fresh for at least a year or more!

There are so many great online resources for canning instruction as well as recipes. I was excited to come across this awesome site called Canning Across America with super cool tagline: JOIN THE CANVOLUTION that has great recipes and resources and even sponsor events around the country like demos and home canning parties. I love the thought of a home canning party. I may just have to have one. Maybe you should too?

homecentric

there is no doubt about it, having a home is better than not having one. we have been experiencing a week of impromptu homelessness thanks to some floor refinishing gone awry, resulting in our house REEKING of toxic fumes for nearly 7 days. i hardly have room to complain, i know, since we do in fact have a house to call our own and the problem was of our own making. but nonetheless, i've been moaning and groaning and a tad ornery because the whole deal has been pretty trying. we have been lucky to have had other places to land (thank you Bev and Nile and Dad!) but i've felt a real sense of purposelessness without my home. i think so much of what i'm about these days is tied to embracing being home and relishing the comforts and sense of daily routine this creates. i would go so far as to say that my current philospohy about simplfying my life and my wants could be summed up as being homecentric. i differentiate this idea from being an agoraphobe or a misanthrope because the desire and urge to be home has nothing to do with avoiding other people or society at large but more to do with me taking control over my own time, my values, and my daily schedule.

the last 9 months have taught me that for the most part staying in seems to breed contentment. my kids don't seem to miss being shuttled to and fro and they get lots of free time to play and create. my bank balance is happier when i don't go out and shop needlessly and this in turn makes my marriage more peaceful. the physical home around me looks better because i have more time to keep it tidy and organized. i feel more creative because i make the time to write, read, and work on projects. my family eats better because i cook more and eat out less. i feel better because i'm spending the kind of quality time with my family that i think is key for happy little souls and minds and this makes me feel like i take the job of being a mother and a partner seriously and i like that. becoming homecentric has been a huge epiphany for me over the course of the last year and something that this week away has laid plain all over again. though the week has been a tough one, i'm grateful for the reminder that home is where i want to be. especially a home with shiny, glossy, luscious new floors!!

swooning over art & ideas

I love, love, love the artist, designer, and person extraordinaire, Maira Kalman. When I lived in NYC she was one of the people I got to meet via my job at the Museum. She was amazing. Her work wowed me then and wows me now. Her children's books are genius-written equally for the child and the adult, and she has done a lot of memorable covers for the New Yorker. Her illustrations always hit a very unusual mark for me in terms of art. They are whimsical and sweet yet sophisticated and smart.

I am thrilled to discover that she is doing a monthly visual blog on the NY Times website called "And the Pursuit of Happiness" exploring themes of America and American democracy through her quirky mind. I am loving it! All the entries are extraordinary but this one called Can Do about Ben Franklin and American Invention-ism made me swoon. Check it out. It may be a little off topic for me, but I think this piece and Kalman in general is a great nod on the side of abundance; in spirit, in deed, and in your heart. Hope you enjoy.

bring it on, cornucopia!

i have a confession. for all my good intentions my garden this year turned out pretty pitifully. i had grand visions of wading through row after row of over flowing tomoato, zuchinni, peppers, and eggplants; everything green and the vegetables luscious. it was our first year with a true vegetable garden and i think, like so many beginner's pursuits, the mind's eye and the actual reality had very little in common. rather than lush plenty, i pretty much have patchy anemic plants in dry, stale soil. sounds like eden, right?

it feels like pretty much everything that could go wrong did. the summer here in salt lake started out slowly with an unseasonably cool and rainy june so other than my spinach and lettuce crops, my early summer plantings all pretty much flunked. things were yellow and mottled and not great garden material. i seriously think i had something like 8 pea pods to show for my efforts. it was pathetic. the birds successfully stole every ripe strawberry we had. then there's flynn who at 2 years old is my garden's greatest enemy. he picked every single blossom off my cucumber plant and then ended up just having his way with it and pulling the whole thing right up out of the ground. he regularly picks all the tomatoes off the vine green or red, and he has stepped on my dear beets to the point of bruising. poor garden. i didn't pay enough attention to the tomatoes climbing up and up and nearly every plant has overrun their cage and are tipping precariously back over on to the dirt. but the biggest error of judgement was that the garden site just doesn't get enough sun. our yard has lovely huge pine and aspen trees and even though we removed a few pine behemoths last fall, we still didn't get enough golden rays to make things thrive.

i'm terming this year our guinea pig garden year, and because of our failures, i think we learned a lot. i think next summer we're ready to commit. no more pussy footing around and half heartedly growing stuff, we're going to get in it to win it! next year we will be siting things differently; pulling up grass and moving the garden to the only completely sunny patch in our yard. i will start my seeds for cold crops like lettuce, peas, spinach, and beets a lot earlier and hope that i can get a second round in again in the fall. i will water everything more and be vigilant about weekly fish emulsion fertilizer. most of all, i just want to make sure i spend the time out there taking stock and being attentive. i think truly great, productive gardens must take a lot more will power and hours than we were giving to ours.

all this being said, i am enjoying the bounty of the end of harvest season and am relishing the few garden triumphs we had. we have had many a good B.L.T. in the last couple weeks with our black master heirloom tomatoes. and i really am not lying when i say that the exactly 12 peaches that came off our little spindly peach tree were the sweetest, juiciest, and, dare i say, ambrosial peaches i've ever encountered? they were heavenly and made me seriously want to turn every inch of backyard into a peach orchard so i can share the gospel. after a rough start, the basil has finally matured and is now so prolific i've been making and freezing pesto like a fiend. i've been canning fresh salsa to make use of some respectable looking jalapeno and serrano peppers we grew.

and i know i'm not the only one with great, home grown food on my hands. i've been getting lots of nice fresh produce care packages from people...zucchini bread, potatoes, apples, beets....so much bounty. this is such a great time of year. the food couldn't be more prime and fresh or the light more golden. i feel lucky that i'm not trying to survive off what i grew this summer. we'd starve come october. but i feel even luckier still to have a little plot of earth to call my own, a place to reap what i sow. it's worth the weeds and the smack of failure. there's always next year, right?

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R.I.P. Gilmer Drive, place of my youth

it is hard to imagine, but my dad has lived in the same exact spot for 36 years. his blue/green house on the hill is a fixture in the neighborhood but even more a fixture in his life. and mine. i love gilmer drive and i love that house so it is with more than a tinge of sadness that i watched him pack up his stuff and head for a new spot and a fresh start.

i had the pleasure of going over and helping him assess his belongings this past week, what to pack, what to trash, what to give away. moving sucks at any point, but after 36 years of accumulation, the task can be plain old daunting. it is so much easier to be objective about other people's stuff than your own. what to chuck vs. what to keep seemed pretty obvious to me, but then again, i hadn't developed the personality and the stories behind these objects over the course of my adult life. it is difficult to see the meaning in a stapler until you realize it was the one that sat on your very first real desk. you get my drift.

since this was the house of my childhood, i had many funny moments opening drawers and finding odds and ends and treasures from my past. in the bathroom that was once shared by me and my sister i found our very first "lady gilette" electric razor that my mom bought for us in our tweens when she didn't think we could handle the umph of a true razor. the entire thing is maroon and has a huge cord that is not detachable! i found 20 year old stray bottles of ultra swim shampoo left from my swim team days and vidal sasson "cream rinse", the only conditioner other than Aussie Mega allowed in the 80s shower, I'm pretty sure. i found my mom's bright blue plastic sewing box, still kept on the top shelf of the old closet and still full of seam rippers and denim iron on patches. i saw the first cds i remember my parents buying ( the Beatles Rubber Soul and Bob Marley Legend) as well as copies of recorded off tv onto blank VHS tapes of Max Duggan Returns, Princess Bride, Goonies, and Ghostbusters...the flicks I was raised on and could probably still recite verbatim.

it was a trip down memory lane and it truly was fun. i think i've been in such a mode of thinking of material possessions, STUFF, in a dreadful light: as a pain in the ass, a debter's prison, and just generally something with a bad connotation. and i think if acquiring things is what defines and stresses you then it probably deserves those monikers. but seeing all these relics of my past, sentimental and full of meaning, i felt so grateful that my dad isn't more of a purger, happy that i had the chance to revisit one more time my awkward adolescence, my parent's divorce, and to say goodbye to my childhood in a very official and cathartic way.

i guess the lesson in all this for me is that though i really don't want to accumulate for the sake of accumulating, perhaps there is a reason to hold on to that favorite stuffed animals your 5 year old isn't really playing with anymore, or to resist the urge to purge the tattered copy of williams carlos williams poetry that reminds you of your freshman year of college. perhaps treated right and protected, maybe stuff has the ability to develop and ripen, just like a fine wine; keep it in your cellar and then when you are ready and relaxed, sit back and enjoy the taste and the perfume of memory.

U PICK!

Me and mine have had a very full holiday weekend. We spent lots of time with friends, worked in the yard, and managed to start a serious home demolition project in our living room. But the biggest hit of the weekend, and seriously the most favorite thing I've done in forever, was going to McBride Berry Farm in Mapleton, Utah to pick raspberries and blackberries. I found the farm on http://www.pickyourown.org/ which is a really great resource for finding YouPick farms across the country.

The idea of going and picking a crop fresh from the farm that grows it has appealed to me since becoming more aware of the concept of community supported agriculture, which is basically shorthand for saying you support the farming in your region by directly giving the farmers the money for their products, as opposed to grocery store or mega stores. I also felt a pick your own experience would be a great learning opportunity for my kids (and me) to see first hand how a specific food we eat grows and what kind of labor it takes to get it to our table. Going to pick berries seemed like a good fit for our family because we eat them in a serious way around here in smoothies and over our morning granola and yogurt. I usually rely on the big frozen bag of mixed berries from Costco or splurge and buy "fresh" from the store (which I now realize is clearly not the right word. ) And happily it turns out that at $3/pound, picking the berries fresh is way more economical than buying them in tiny plastic clamshells! My plan was to go pick a lot and then make some jam and then freeze the rest to use over the next few months.

So on Saturday we loaded up and headed an hour or so south to the farm and picked our hearts out. The farm was a good size but certainly not some huge corporate operation. It is owned and run by a very sweet couple, Wayne and Joyce McBride, (that's Wayne in the photo above) who were right there to hand us buckets and give us a quick lesson in the art of picking. The raspberries were so beautiful and ripe and the canes were bending over with the weight of them. Jaren, Cleo, Flynn, and I all picked right along side each other, listening to the bees buzz around and just enjoying the peace that comes from a nice, unhurried task. We ended up picking 16 pounds in a couple hours! The blackberries were my favorite to pick. You had to work more for them, really digging through to the middle of the canes to find the ripe ones, but man, the good berries would practically fall right into your hand when you touched them, they were so ripe and ready to be eaten. And they taste unlike ANY blackberry I've ever bought at the grocery store. They are absolutely black, with no hint of red on the berry, and are plump with juice, and super sweet and a bit wild tasting. I couldn't help but think how luxurious it felt to be eating something picked at the peak of ripeness, it just isn't an everyday experience.

I am happy to report that the kids enjoyed our adventure just as much as we did. Every kid I've ever known has relished picking leaves and flowers in the yard to a fault We battle with our kids constantly about what is and is not okay to pick. (All the flowers on Mom's cucumber plants NO; all the purple flowers on our vinca groundcover FINE...you get the idea.) To get to turn them loose and tell them to pick every single berry they see felt pretty liberating for all of us. Cleo filled her bucket about as fast as we did, and at one point, she turned to us and claimed "this is more fun than Lagoon!" (A local version of a Six Flags so that is saying a lot!) And aIthough I don't think Flynn's bucket ever saw a single berry, his berry stained fingers, cheeks, and chin were proof of just how much he was enjoying his own brand of picking. HIs diapers may never be the same!

It was a successful outing and one that I would definitely recommend and will now turn into a yearly family tradition. Next up: turning all that bounty into jam!

P.S. If you are in the Salt Lake area, the McBride's are having a banner year for their berries and predict they will be open into October. There address is 1849 S. 2100 W., Mapleton, UT

Go check it out and have fun picking and eating!