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Every August there is one afternoon when I stand at my kitchen counter, look at the steam rolling off the big pot, feel a drop of sweat run down my back, and ask myself out loud why we do this in the hottest month of the year. My husband, who has learned not to answer that question, usually opens another window and goes outside.
The honest answer is that we do it in August because that is when everything is ready. The tomatoes do not care that it is ninety degrees out. The cucumbers will not wait until a cool week. So the preserving happens when it happens, and the kitchen pays for it.
This post is not about preserving itself. I have written about checking the tested guidelines, the batch I ruined, and the gear I actually kept. It is about the room all of that happens in, and the one thing I keep wishing our kitchen had on those days.
The hottest room in the house, in the hottest month
Our kitchen was not designed for any of this. It is a small suburban kitchen with one window over the sink and a back door that lets in more flies than breeze. On an ordinary day it is fine. On a preserving day, with a big pot going on the stove for hours, it becomes the hottest room in the house by a long way.
The heat is only half of it. The air goes heavy and still. Steam hangs around the ceiling. The windows fog. By late afternoon the whole room has that thick, damp feeling where nothing quite dries, including me.
What we have tried
Windows open, obviously, though on a still day that does very little. A box fan on the floor, which helped a bit but took up space I did not have and kept getting in the way of my feet. Doing the hottest work first thing in the morning, which is the best of the lot and I recommend it to anyone. Taking breaks on the back step, which is less a solution than a coping strategy.
Why I keep coming back to a ceiling fan
The thing I keep wishing for is air that moves without being in the way. A fan that lives on the ceiling does not take up counter space, does not sit on the floor where I trip over it, and moves the heavy air that collects up near the ceiling on a steamy day. It is the one piece of kitchen equipment I would add that would not need a place to be stored.
It is not only about preserving days. In late summer I hang bundles of herbs from a string near the ceiling to dry, and on a humid week they take far longer than I would like. Moving air helps with that too. And in winter, a fan that can run on a low setting is useful in a different way, keeping the room from feeling stuffy when the house is closed up.
A few things I would think about first
Where the air goes. I would not want a strong draft blowing straight across a gas burner, or knocking steam around the stove while I am working there. The placement matters as much as the fan.
The ceiling height. Our kitchen ceiling is not high. Any fan has to suit the room it is going into, with enough clearance that nobody is ducking.
Who installs it. This is the one job in this house I will not do myself. Anything that hangs from the ceiling and connects to the wiring is a job for a licensed electrician.
A fan brand I have been looking at
While I was looking around, I came across Fanimation, which makes ceiling fans in a range of styles, from simple to rather grand. Starlight Lighting sells them, and at the time I am writing they have a 10% off promotion on Fanimation products. One thing to know before you click: Starlight Lighting is a Canadian retailer, so it makes the most sense if you are in Canada. If you are, the banner below goes straight to their Fanimation range.
I would take any promotion as a nice extra rather than a reason to buy. The questions that matter are the ones above: what room, what ceiling, and who is putting it up.
Small changes that make the work possible
A lot of what I have learned on this little homestead comes down to the same lesson. The work itself is not usually what makes me want to quit. It is the conditions around it. A coop that is hard to clean. A pantry with no room for the jars. A kitchen that turns into a sauna by three o’clock in August. Fix the conditions, and the work gets easier to keep doing year after year.
Moving air in the kitchen is one of those conditions. It will not make preserving day cool, and nothing short of doing it in October will. But it might make the difference between finishing the last batch in good humor and finishing it on the back step with a damp dish towel on my neck.
Until next August
The jars from this year are on the shelf now, the big pot is back in the cupboard, and the kitchen is a pleasant temperature again. It always is, by the time I stop needing it to be. Which is exactly why I am thinking about this in the autumn, while I still remember how that afternoon felt.
If you are in Canada and thinking about the same thing for your own kitchen, you can browse Fanimation ceiling fans at Starlight Lighting. And whatever you decide, do the hottest work in the morning. That one is free.
Photos: Yasin Onuş and KoolShooters via Pexels.