Back Down the Country Road
"Hey Sunshine, how's it going?" I ask. She barely lifts an eyebrow and looks at me with a judgmental air of superiority.
"Who are you?" she asks, not really interested.
"I'm you in 30 years. Ta da!" I spread my arms and present myself.
She coughs a laugh. "I will never be that old and fat."
"Yeah you will," I say. "I see you're getting ready to spend the next three days peeling peaches." She looks like she could spit. I smile at my own suffering. I sit down on the coffee table and lean close to her to whisper.
Into her ear, "I just came to tell you, that later on, when you're sweating over that sink of hot water, washing jars and rings and Mom has the canner roiling with steam in that tiny kitchen and you're hating your life, planning your escape to California, you should know that one day - you'll be doing this for fun." I smile. "And I've never lived in California and don't want to."
She looks at me like I've just stolen all her hope and then she hits me.
All that canning with mom didn't teach me how to do it - I was too busy hating it. But a few years ago, I decided to teach myself from a book (can you imagine?) how to can produce. I've had fun with it here and there. I don't can things by the dozen like we used to - not liking to take the fun too far. Canning 4 jars at a time makes it easy and pretty enjoyable, enough to be satisfying. Recently, Eden asked me to teach her how. WOW!
She grew okra in her tiny backyard garden and asked if we could pickle them. I don't eat pickles so I've never made any kind of them, but I've still got my book - actually I have 3 canning books (Don't tell 14 year old Cindy - she can't handle it.) So she came over to make okra pickles and rose petal honey (that's cool!). I only really make strawberry preserves these days, so I picked up enough strawberries to make 6 half pint jars.
The first rule of canning is cleanliness, starting with our hands. As you can see by her polish, Eden's hands have just recently come off their tour of Vegas.
My canner only holds up to 4 pint jars - I'm a small scale cannery. We have washed the jars, rings and seals, but we need to sterilize the jars. The rings do not require pre-sterilization (per the book) but I'm for boiling everything. The seals have simmering water poured over them and they sit in hot water waiting for their chore.
We are making 3 pints of pickled okra, 6 half pints of strawberry preserves and 1 half pint of rose petal honey. While the jars are sterilizing, Eden slices the okra, hot peppers, and garlic. I boil together water, vinegar, fresh dill and pickling salt.
"I don't think you need to crush the garlic, just put it in whole," I say, after she has crushed it.
"Oh, well..." she responds.
"It's okay, put it in, it doesn't matter."
"Okay, I'm just going to put all of the garlic in."
"Well, don't make them too garlicky."
"Yeah, I don't think that's a thing," she says. They're her pickles...
Time to get the jars. Proper canning equipment is essential. Dealing with boiling water and glass can be a dangerous business, if you don't have what you need - and sometimes even when you do. I have never canned without pouring boiling water on myself. I've determined it's part of the process.
The okra and other goodies have been stuffed into the hot jars, we ladle the hot vinegar mixture over them, leaving 1 inch air space at the top. On go the hot seals and the rings. They are ready for processing.
The filled jars go back into the canner to boil for 15 minutes. Then we pull them out, let them cool and listen for the seal to pop. We had some trouble with the seals that came with the jars - they didn't pop. We twisted our mouths and stared at them.
"Well, you could store them in the fridge to be safe."
"Yeah, I mean, I'm going to do that anyway."
"Then it doesn't matter," I say.
"No," Craig chimes in. "Just botulism if you do it wrong and everybody dies."
"What?" Eden asks, face frozen in shocked terror.
"Oh Craig," I say. "Nobody's going to die. I mean - it needs to be done right. Otherwise, yeah, that's bad. But we can just put on new seals and process them again." So that's what we do. For good or for bad in flavor - they are sterilized.
Next we do the strawberries, which look beautiful and pop perfectly. We used all new seals and threw out the seals that came on the jars - just in case. I am a safe, if not frugal, canner. Strawberries are washed, cut and sliced the night before. I cover them well with sugar and leave them in the fridge overnight. The next day they are boiled for about 10 minutes and the foam gleaned from the top. Hot, sterilized half pint jars are filled within 1/2 inch of the top and processed for 10 minutes. Bertrand, my kitchen chef, finds this all very amusing.
So far, so good. I always have towels available to rest hot jars, the book says that is a good thing and it works well - if you ignore the husband in the background making comments about your daily overuse of hand towels.
We had a lot of time to wait and chat.
Talking about dogs...
"You could tell by looking in Dolly's eyes that she wasn't smart." said Eden about her Chihuahua, who died earlier this year.
"Yeah, she was a bimbo," I agree. (These comments are made in love - like all critical motherly comments.)
"But you can see there's a lot going on behind Maddie's eyes." she beamed.
"She's a smart dog. If you can get past her looks and how she smells, you have to admire her intelligence."
"Oh, I think she' pretty. She is in the house all the time now. I started calling her My Princessa and now Jude call her Princessa. She used to have a lot of white in her beard but since she's been inside, it's started growing brown again."
"She's living the easy life." I agree.
"She looks younger to me," she says.
"Hmmm... I need that," I say.
Eden and I are both avid rose gardeners, so when she found this recipe for Rose Petal Honey, we were both delighted to try it. Cooking with roses - it's so sophisticated. I am certain Beatrix Potter (our shared spirit author) regularly nibbled roses - like ladies do.
Rose Petal Honey
In a heavy saucepan, stir together 1 cup of water, petals from six medium roses (organic) and 2 TBSP of fresh lemon juice. Bring to a boil and simmer until the petals lose their color.
Strain petals reserving as much of the liquid as you can in the sauce pan. Add in 6 TBSP of sugar and one 3-oz. pkg of liquid pectin. Stir well, bring to a boil and boil rapidly for 1 minute. Pour into a hot jar and store in the refrigerator.
It was sweet, lemony and pink! Now that's lovely. Because Eden wanted it for display and not eating, we processed her "honey" for 10 minutes to seal it. Otherwise, you do not need to do that - just refrigerate and eat.
We chat a bit more.
"You know that tingle you get when someone is touching your hair?" she asks.
"Yeah."
"They have these ASMR videos on Youtube that are designed to stimulate that response and help you relax. They are really cool because you can feel it."
I'm skeptical.
"They will act like they are putting makeup on you, brushing your hair or just making sounds like opening packages - it's very relaxing."
"It sounds weird but I'll check them out."
(Author's note) Later via text at bedtime.
Me to her: These ASMR videos are weird. I don't like their whispering, it freaks me out.
Her to me: Check out Whispersredasmr - she's good.
Me to her: I've been watching her brush her cousin's hair for 12 minutes. I am both relaxed and uncomfortable.
She texted me a photo of the Rose Petal Honey in its new home on the "shelf of homey goodness" in her house. I'm happy it was good enough to go next to the Apple Butter Sauce she bought in Sulphur Springs.
Side note - the okra pickles are for Mason's birthday, so if you know Mason, don't tell him. He thinks they did not turn out - which may or may not be true. Until next time...
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