Preservation

In life, there are always moments that we would give almost anything to go back to, sometimes to correct an error, or perhaps just to relive a perfect time. Come summer in this rainy town, I get an almost irrational desire to preserve anything and everything fresh and reminiscent of summer in sight for just that purpose. In November I know, thanks to my exploits of yesterday and this weekend, I will be scooping sour cherry filling into a pie shell and with the first bite I will be right back in July...
Canning is intimidating and scary to many people - when I discuss it, newcomers to the wonderful world of self-preservation (haha...) often express anxiety that in order to perfect the art they would need a sci-fi sanitary kitchen, loads of expensive fancy equipment and decades of skill and practice. I assure you this is not the case. There is in fact an abundance of easy DIY canning advice available right here on the internet. Many of the sites look like they haven't been updated since the 90's but canning technique sure hasn't either so I suggest a quick google and you'll be off (there are even some sites which appear to have been edited/created in the last decade)!

In my household's most recent canning exploit: my roommate made full use of her bartering skills (and employment at a chocolate factory) to obtain three flats of local organic raspberries at the farmer's market and I contributed my knowledge of a sour cherry tree growing on public land about a block and a half from our apartment. The raspberries were transformed into delicious jam, made with agave nectar in place of sugar (only possible through the use of a pectin which is calcium rather than sugar activated) and the flat or so of cherries we managed to collect made three pint jars of pie filling and two half pints of delicious jelly...I almost can't wait for cool weather to start making use of my stockpile!