The Hottest Room in August: Thinking About a Ceiling Fan for the Preserving Kitchen
Preserving happens in the hottest month, in a kitchen that was never designed for it. What we have tried on steamy August afternoons, and why I…
Preserving
The Things I Do Not Preserve, and Why I Stopped
August is when the kitchen fills up and every jar starts to look like a good idea. Here are the five things I have taken off…
Where I Actually Store the Jars, and Why It Is Not the Pantry
Nobody warns you that storage is the part that decides how much you should make. My first shelf was on a hot south wall, my labels…
The Preserving Gear I Actually Kept After Three Years
I emptied the bottom cupboard in June and sorted every piece of preserving equipment into keep, donate and what was I thinking. Here is what earned…
The Day I Stopped Guessing and Checked the Actual Guidelines
Someone handed me a jar of home canned green beans at a plant swap and I could not answer one simple question about it. That jar…
Why I Started With Fridge Pickles and Stayed There a While
Refrigerator pickles get treated as the training wheels version of preserving. They were the only thing I finished eating in my first year, and they taught…
The First Batch I Ruined and What the Mold Taught Me
My first jar of fermented green beans grew a gray ring on top while I told myself it was nothing. Here is what actually went wrong,…