Coollingwood's: October 2003

I finally got organized to make some hot pickled veggies - gardeniera, I believe the mixture is called. Cauliflower? Check. Carrots and celery? Check. Little baby onions (my secret favorite)? Check. I'm leaving out the stringy bits of red pepper because I don't like them. Normally I love red bell peppers (roasted, fried, whatever) but pickled they're just a crime against food. So today during what is supposed to be my lunch I'll cut everything up and then tomorrow it'll be processing time. The only thing I forgot to buy is more vinegar so another trip to the grocery will be required. No problem - I'll go when I head out to do the preschool pick up.

My husband thinks I'm out of my mind - this stuff can be bought pretty cheaply, right? Why make it? Well, darling, for the same reason as you felt you had to make our marital bed when any furniture store anywhere sells dozens of them, that's why. For the same reason that I have sitting on this desk a 75% completed race car driver costume when Lillian Vernon could have sold me one for forty bucks or so (tax, shipping and handling not included). Sometimes things you make yourself are just better in some indefinable way - the seams might be a little (o.k., a lot) crooked, the veggies not all chopped to uniform size, the bed not totally sanded on the bottom - but it's all just better. That's why. I love gardeniera (a delicious, nutritious, fat-free snack - what's not to love?) and I want to make lots and lots of it.

I keep saying I need to take a canning break and, after the gardeniera, I'm really going to. I am pretty behind on household-related goals (preparing the nursery, rearranging the Boy Wonder's bedroom, painting the upstairs bath) and am very behind on professional goals (completing a business plan, completing a book outline, finishing a tracking database for a client). I have also had the same DVDs from Netflix sitting on top of the television for weeks. No late fees, sure, but not exactly cost effective if you don't actually watch the movies.

Then again, the post-Christmas/pre-baby lull would be a great time to make some marmalade.

I had to throw away two jars of mango jam yesterday. Very disappointing. Besides the obvious lesson, which is to take your canning safety seriously (could I ever have forgiven myself if my son was made ill via his PB&J?) it got me to thinking about those times when you do everything right and still stuff gets mucked up.

In college I studied languages, learned lots of applications and different operating systems, had several excellent co-ops (all activities billed as rendering me ready and perfect for the job market) and yet, in graduating into the recession of the early 90s, found myself pounding the pavement competing for temp positions. It's been 11 years now (I'm no longer considered a "young alum" by my alma mater) and I think I've caught up but those first years of working were difficult, because I did everything I was told would make me very competitive and it turned out there were thousands of kids just like me and companies could hire PhDs for the same cost as my little ole' BS. Things are worse now for new grads, and I just can't imagine what it must be like being out there new to the workforce with little to offer when so many with excellent resumes and track records are on the bench and you just can't compete.

Or take my sister-in-law's good friend who just gave birth, except she won't be taking her baby home. "Lisa" is ridiculously fit, never smokes or drinks, eats a good and varied diet and took prenatals for months before even trying to become pregnant, would leave the room in the presence of a litter box or unpasteurized cheese, and gained the recommended and physician-sanctioned 25 pounds exactly. And yet...her daughter was stillborn. She did everything right, left nothing to chance, but her baby will not be sleeping in the basinette in the corner of her bedroom.

Then there's my friend "Gina". She and her husband prepared for their marriage like it was the bar exam. They took extra preparation classes, communication classes, household management classes, sex classes. Once married, they kept weekly date night sacred through three kids and two cross-country moves - and took yearly, kid-free vacations to keep connected. But now he's fallen in love with a colleague and says that Gina never really understood him. She says he's right.

I guess sometimes it all just hits the fan and there's absolutely nothing we can do. As a Type-A control freak in (tenuous) recovery I find this hard to take. I want to feel that if I do everything I'm supposed to do, make all As, remember to pack a raincoat and check all my seals for leakage that nothing bad will happen to me or anyone I care about. Unrealistic, I know. Doesn't change my inner voice, though (the one that's keeping me up at 4:45 a.m. writing this and thinking about what has to be done today), and it doesn't stop me from trying to fix everyone's lives so that I don't have to feel sad for them. And it doesn't stop me from putting "make more mango jam" on the already too long to-do list. It's my son's favorite so I have to make it - just hope I don't screw it up this time.

When I left my last corporate job two and a half years ago much of my family and many of my friends thought I was nuts. I had been working for a well known professional services firm, received much professional admiration from having a cutting edge title (I had to supply a business card to my father to prove that "Knowledge Manager" was, indeed, an actual job) and truly enjoyed my colleagues, if not my management. Leaving was a calculated risk, though, and one that I knew I couldn't let pass. Since then, I've worked steadily (although not constantly) and am pleased and proud to have been able to support my family while my husband finishes school. It turns out that the solo working life suits me.

So why is it then that the thought of going further with this little experiment scares the h-e-double-hockey-sticks out of me? Do we all have a built in risk threshold and I've come up against mine? I have this idea and have scoured the earth looking for reasons not to pursue it and can find none other than my fear. So what's the problem? I have a small amount of capital ready to invest and am confident I can start on a shoestring, am rolling off my current project just before I go onto my self-scheduled and self-funded maternity leave and will have some time to put together a plan (don't laugh! I started grad school and got pregnant with my first in the same month and left my job when he was 9 months old, so I think I can multi-task here, too). Again, so what's the problem? Why can't I just say outloud that I'm starting another company and close this latest chapter of my life. Maybe it's the idea of leaving myself rather than some company that cared little about my actual competencies and more about my ability to be a warm body. Maybe it's that I know that leaving behind a good thing is much harder than leaving behind a mediocre thing.

In mulling over these issues and rereading all of my "Gen-X entrepreneur" books I came across a passage where a women relayed the story of her dithering over writing a book she knew she had in her. Finally, her frustrated companion said, "Someday you'll be in a book store and see your book on the shelf, but written by someone else. And you're going to have to live with that."

Yikes.

I am a very tired woman. Scratch that. I am a very tired woman with a very messy kitchen and I should be shot for using so many dishes at one go. Oh well, as annoyed as I am with myself now, I know that I'll be glad for it all in the end.

My freezer is now harboring large batches of both black bean and split pea soup, as well as several kinds of muffins (these are for the bonfire party this Saturday). It always feels so good to put stuff in the freezer, like a "get out of jail free" card for those inevitable days when I just can't face the thought of cooking but am nearly crazed with hunger when 6:30 rolls around. As much as I love to cook there are at least a few such days each month.

We actually had some of the black bean soup last night for dinner, with a nice french bread on the side. Very yummy. The Boy Wonder surprised and pleased us by asking for both plain yogurt and lime juice in his and then eating it all and wanting seconds. Dinner tonight was leftover roast chicken and succotash with rice pilaf. I also made a wilted lettuce salad, which is possibly the worst salad you can eat, health-wise, but it is so very delicious. If I have time tomorrow dinner will be shells stuffed with crab and bechamel (double batch with extras going into the freezer, natch).

Using my last jar of home canned diced tomatoes reminded me of my committment to myself to do something about the garden situation. The current garden is too far from the house to be tended to conveniently and, as it is somewhat down a hill, cannot be seen from the house. This situation (along with a poor summer in terms of weather and my disinclination to do much due to morning sickness) led to our garden being stop number one on the deer and rabbit buffet hit parade. So we're moving the garden closer to the house via a series of raised beds roughly 4' X 6' in four rows of three. I'm hoping that proximity to both the house and the dog run will discourage our neighborhood creatures from partaking of my veggies. We shall see.

Anyway, my point with this is that we also prepared some areas with mulch and manure. I've covered the areas where the beds will go with 8-10 layers of newspaper (weeds here are more like super-plants so I'm seriously concerned that this wasn't enough) and then put the manure on top of that. Throughout the winter I'll pile our compostable waste over the bed areas and the in the spring we'll be ready for a final layer of compost and mulch. If all the stars are in alignment we will have all the tomatoes, squash, peppers, beans, greens, etc. that we can eat (plus leftover for sharing and canning). Still, I'm thinking of joining a CSA just to cover my bases.

The weekend was rounded out by pumpkin buying and preparing the bonfire site. Some of our smaller pumpkins will be cut into luminaria to decorate the area around the fire but we made sure to get a nice big one for our family jack-o-lantern. The Boy has made it clear that he expects a "scaredy face". I am sure we can accommodate him.

I was inspired this morning to go grocery shopping quite early and get it out of the way before the day started to get away from me. Because I work at home I can usually take care of these kinds of errands whenever I feel like it but more and more I feel like it ruins my day to have to deal with a supermarket and I've begun to put it off. Early on a crisp, clear fall day it felt more like a pleasure to head out just after rush hour to take care of it. Plus, getting it done today may pay off in other dividends - UVA is playing FSU here in town this weekend and I've been told by those in the know not to even try to head into the city or get anywhere near it, for that matter. So if we're sticking close to home this weekend, it's nice to know that there is some decent food in the house.

I must be started to get a little nesty, because I as I was pushing my cart around I started to think of all the stuff I wanted to cook. I bought supplies for bigos, black bean soup, split pea soup, potatoes grantinee, roast chicken and lots more. The soups I'll do and then freeze, since there's nothing better than to be able to pull something like that out of the freezer when you think there's nothing to eat and you don't feel like going anywhere. In front of a fire with a glass of cider and a hunk of good bread a nice thick soup is like heaven.

I'm going to roast the chicken for dinner tonight. Along side will be succotash (don't say "yuk"- it's really yummy), the aforementioned potatoes gratinee (bought a nice gruyere for the occasion), and a green salad.

Here's how I'll make the succotash - it's based on a Laurie Colwin recipe that I think she, in turn, took from a friend. I start by sauteeing a small diced onion in about 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter. When the onion becomes translucent, I add two parts frozen or canned corn, two parts frozen lima beans and one part frozen sliced okra. Cook, stirring frequently, until all the veggies are heated through and the liquid is mostly absorbed or evaporated. Add a bit more butter to taste and season with salt and pepper. Hmm...I'm getting hungy already.

I haven't done any canning since the brussels sprouts last week. Work has been busy and now that I've realized that our bonfire party is only a week away followed rapidly by a host of other activities I'm not sure if I'll ever get to that applesauce. I'm sad about this, but in the pantheon of trade-offs it doesn't rank very high.

Just because I haven't been canning, though, doesn't mean I haven't been preserving. This is the time of year I renew my supply of flavored oils and vinegars. I tend not to get to fancy with these - basil vinegar, garlic/pepper oil, garlic vinegar and so on - but I still like to have them around. It's very short work to delicious marinades and salad dressings once you've got a supply of this stuff on hand and it's much cheaper to make your own than buy them, even if you choose to get fancier than I. I use old Grolsch bottles or the kind from the fancy lemonade you buy at Whole Foods. My sister also made me a set of really great etched wine bottles, which I stop with a cork. So even though the applesauce remains undone, I still feel the warm glow of accomplishment.

I had a minor meltdown last weekend when I realized that I have roughly 15 weeks (give or take a fortnight) left of pregnancy. This made me very happy until I realized that these 15 weeks will have to encompass:

And this doesn't take into account the stuff I've said "no" to (my soon-to-be-born nephew's Christening, Christmas in either Philly or Buffalo, a Christmas party the week prior in Philly). I simply do not have time - I'm just going to have to be pregnant for 50, maybe 55, weeks.

Yay! I got some brussels sprouts! Besides the fact that those two expressions are side by side for possibly the first time in human history, this development is momentous for another reason. Today, for the first time ever, I will post my pickle-making methods. If you like pickled veggies, this is for you. If you don't, then it might still be for you since it's a great recipe and you don't know what you're missing.

The first thing is to make sure you know what you're doing, canning-wise and that you have the basic equipment on hand. You'll need a canning kettle (preferably one that comes with the jar rack), a box of pint size jars with the two piece "dome" lids, some kind of funnel (a special canning funnel is nice, but not necessary) and a couple of saucepans and wooden spoons. Other than the sauce pans, you can get most of this at your neighborhood hardware store - not the big-box type of store, but the old-fashioned kind where things get kind of dusty and the workers know what they're talking about. You can buy a starters kit that contains most of this stuff, plus some more special items. If you think you'll like canning, then by all means make the investment. (By the way, yes I know that your great-grandma canned 800 quarts a year using nothing but old mayo jars and some parafin. Get the new-fangled stuff anyway. We know more about food-borne pathogens now and it's not all that terribly expensive and should pay you back in savings if you end up canning more than a few pints, depending upon what you can.)

Next, get thee online or to a library and read the basics of home canning. Most canning books will feature several "how to" pages about preparing jars and lids, processing time, etc. Each box of new jars has good basic instructions, too, and usually comes with a recipe or two. DISCLAIMER: Home canning has a small, but real, inherent risk. Make sure your kitchen and utensils are absolutely clean and that you follow directions well in order to reduce the risk as much as possible. Only high-acid food may be canned safely in a hot water bath (which is what I focus on) so don't go thinking you can make, say, turkey rice soup. You can't. And don't skimp on processing time or acidity recommendations or sealing directives. It's 100% your responsibility to make sure that you follow all the guidelines.

Now, let's pickle some brussels sprouts. Follow the recommendations for preparing the jars for canning. Place some sprigs of dill, a large clove of garlic and a whole, fresh jalapeno pepper in each pint jar. Fill jar to about 3/4 of an inch below the top with brussels sprouts. In a saucepan, bring to boil 2 cups of water and 2 cups of regular white 5% acidity vinegar (not the fancy-pants gourmet wine stuff) along with a half a cup of pickling or kosher salt. Stir the salt to dissolve. After the vinegar mixture comes to a boil bring it off the heat and pour into each jar using your funnel and a heat-resistant measuring cup, leaving a half inch of head space at the top of the liquid. You should have enough liquid for four pints. Clean off the rims of each jar using a CLEAN towel dipped in very hot water (I use the water in which the lids are boiling) and then seal by placing the flat part of the two piece lid on the rim of the jar and screwing the ring around it until it's nice and tight. Because you are an organized canner you've already started boiling the water in your canner (fill the canner up pretty high - the water should be at least two inches over the top of the jars when the rack is lowered) you shouldn't have to wait too long before it reaches a rolling boil and is ready to receive the prepared jars.

Place the jars onto the canning rack using either the special tong thingies made for this purpose or a thick oven mitt. Try to balance the jars on the rack so they're not all on one side and tip the rack over. Lower the rack into the canner and cover. Process the sprouts for ten minutes, starting the time count after the water in the canner has come back to a boil. At the end of processing time, remove the jars using your tong thingies or oven mitt and place on the counter on a folded dish towel. Do not mess with the jars or lids while they're cooling. As the jars cool, you'll hear little "pings" indicating that your seals are sealing and you've done a good job.

Let the pickles season for a couple weeks before you open them to the raves that are undoubtedly coming your way.

Let's refresh: If you've followed the basic canning instructions you've sought out as well as my recipe you've got heated jars, heated lids, heated pickling liquid, and the sprouts boiling in their jars in acid, as well as being heated by boiling water from outside the jars. This should cover the territory germ-wise, provided the jars seal. Any jars that don't seal can be reprocessed using new flat parts of the lids.

That's it. I made four pints of picked sprouts as I typed this in real time this morning. Not counting typing time, the four pints required about 20 minutes of preparation, 20 minutes of waiting for the canner to boil and 10 minutes of processing time. That's just a little more than 12 minutes per pint, which will pay you back many times over in the sheer joy of accomplishment and inspiring awe in people who think, quite wrongly as we've seen, that it's hard to can stuff yourself. Today pickles, tomorrow rhubard-ginger marmalade.

Today's first topic: funny CNN.com headlines. I'm not talking about those "news of the strange"-type stories (Would-be Bank Robber Writes Demand Note on Own Deposit Slip), but rather articles for which the subject matter is truly serious, but the headline itself just isn't so. For today, see China's Space Base Not Where Thought. My first thought upon reading this was, "Um, you mean the space base isn't in space? Where is it, then?" Of course, what was meant is that China's launch facilities weren't in the earthly location many/most people (at least among those who care) thought they were.

The previous winning CNN.com funny headline rather lost some humor after reading the story behind it, but just try to read the words Arrest in Fatal Amish Tomato--Tossing Prank without grinning. Please don't misunderstand, I'm not taking pleasure in the fact that someone was actually killed in the tomato-tossing prank, just that the fine folks at CNN couldn't think of a way to headline the story without such seeming insouciance about the whole thing.

Onward to business: I doubt that I'll be doing much canning in the next two weeks, unless I can get my hands on some decent looking brussels sprouts that aren't too expensive. Instead I'll be preparing for my household's first annual Fall Fest. The menu is: chocolate bread pudding (the one that calls for 8 egg yolks and two cups of cream), gingerbread cookies and pizzelles, apple muffins, pumpkin muffins, s'mores, and popcorn balls. To drink: warm cider, spiced wine, Oktoberfest Bier and regular juice boxes for the kids. We bought one of those coffee dispenser thingies you see at Borders to keep either the cider or the wine warm so I don't have to keep running up and down the hill with a pot full of hot liquid - hopefully we'll find another one in the next couple weeks. Plus, my husband's brand new power inverter will allow us to play tunes off of the tractor battery, so no running endless extension cords through the yard for people to trip over in the dark. As an added bonus, the need to create a big pile of sticks is prompting us to clean up the yard well before our natural inclination (which inclination is that?) to do so would have kicked in.

I am now the proud owner of 6 pint jars of dilly beans and have more jars ready for the hoped-for pickled cauliflower and brussels sprouts. The applesauce didn't happen because the orchard didn't have the winesaps ready, after all. Because I know that fruit growing (or growing anything, for that matter) is an inexact science I got over my disappointment. Perhaps this week if I'm able to get up to the orchard.

So I made some more chocolate sauce instead. This time, though, I made it according to the recipe and not according to my tweak-it-as-you-go-along method. You know what? It's better. Seriously - and, blow to my ego aside, you really ought to check it out. It's delicious and simple (if a little dangerous - syrup burns really are horrifying so have your aloe plant near by - and pretty quick. If you're organized you can have several pints cooling on the counter in a matter of a half hour or so.

In addition to working today I am in the process of sorting baby clothes. I have a few piles: 1) clothes that I will wash and send to my sister (whose son is due in the next few weeks) 2) clothes that I will wash and keep here for our (drum role please) baby girl and 3) clothes that I probably wouldn't put on a baby girl (yikes! gender roles and she's not even born!) but are too sentimental to give away. My sister's son will be born near enough to my son's birthday so that she will need to spend very little outfitting her boy. My daughter will be born near enough to her daughter's birthday so that I will need to spend very little outfitting my girl. Nice how these things work out.

To wrap up for today, I am one of those sick people who find holiday preparations to be fun. I'm nearly done shopping and am wildly looking forward to wrapping and bow tying and shipping and all the rest. It is in the spirit of my madness I direct your attention to Christmas Baking with Susie J. Sue is a friend from college (we studied German together, with differing degrees of success - she actually speaks and remembers it and visits family in Germany with whom she can converse. sigh.) and is a kuchen goddess. (In a neat bit of serendipity, it turns out that she also was friendly with the man who became my husband although none of us knew that we all knew the others for a while. I also knew the man who has become her husband but, again, it took a while for us all to realize that we all knew each other.) Anyway, in addition to the benefit of Sue's wisdom, you may learn from the recipe submissions and "kitchen disasters" of others (for some reason I have three such entries of the latter). If Christmas is not celebrated in your house but you do have a relentless sweet tooth you, too, should check it out.

This just in: The New York Times is running an article about canning by Nigella Lawson. Recipe and a picture of Ms. Lawson are to the right of the article, sort of in the middle of the page. Funny thing, I look just like Nigella when I can. Seriously, no sweat on my brow, my kitchen's immaculate and there are no kids or pets running about. And, I look just as nice in a twinset. Ahem.

My Death Star moment lingers, although not a strongly as in recent days. I've decided to move on to other things, not quite ignoring the feelings of imminent doom but rather making an effort to carry on while watching for additional signs or information that could explain why I'm feeling this way. In the meantime, let's talk about food.

I bought four pounds of green beans yesterday which will be made into spicy dilly beans this weekend. The beans were on sale at Giant and since I missed the real green bean season I decided to go for it. I try to buy canning fodder only in its proper season, but occasionally life interferes - I'm sure that these beans will be just fine. I haven't missed the seasons for cauliflower or brussels sprouts, though, which also make excellent pickles. Hopefully I'll be getting to those soon.

Tomorrow I'm accompanying my son on a(nother) field trip to a local orchard and am planning to purchase a bunch of winesaps to make sauce and maybe some spiced apples as well (for crisps and pies). Last year's apple sauce was good (even better since the apples were free) but not great. I understand that winesaps make excellent saucing apples so I'm looking forward to the process. Nothing makes the kitchen smell better than simmering apples with just a hint of cinnamon thrown in. My mom just finished her sauce - she uses jonagolds, which give a lovely pink color to the finished product - and we've promised each other a swap of a few jars.

In non-canning food news, I am thrilled beyond belief that we are going to visit my in-laws in West Chester, Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving. Beyond my in-laws' charm and the inherent attractions of the holiday itself (although I am increasingly uncomfortable with certain aspects of both its history and current celebratory traditions - posts for another time) there is also the added benefit of the new Downingtown location of...Wegmans. Sign. Swoon. For those of you who are not familiar with Wegmans, I can say no less than it is what every supermarket wants to be when it grows up. Seriously. We lived for a time in Canandaigua, New York, the ancestral home of the Wegman family, and enjoyed what was then the flagship store. To say that Wegmans' stores are monuments to the glory and bounty of the world's table is not going too far. Plus, Wegmans is committed to scholarship among its employees who choose to attend college and makes huge efforts in procuring local produce wherever a given store is located, as well as supporting local food banks and community kitchens. As if these were not enough to engender admiration, the store itself is a marvel. Basically, if it's edible, it's available at Wegmans at a reasonably decent price.

Finally, we've decided to host a bonfire toward the end of the month. It's legal here to have open fires after 4 p.m. and we've got the perfect spot for a nice fire down by what was to be the garden. Should be fun - we'll roast marshmallows, drink spiced cider, dance in the light of the moon. Isn't fall just grand?

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