I move through my daily life ever alert to subjects suitable for blogging and usually identify scores of things about which I think I might be able to craft at least somewhat interesting entries. Alas, it is this same daily life that has been preventing me from actually committing the thoughts to posts.


One of my long-standing clients is continuing an established tradition that allows all kinds of stuff to hit the fan in the last weeks of the year. Like many organizations, budgets are determined on a use-it-or-lose-it calendar year basis, as are bonuses - progress toward which is measured by how much was completed against the list of goals created earlier in the year. The result is that December arrives, everyone looks up and thinks, "Holy cow! We've got to get how much stuff done on the next few weeks? Well, I ain't working over the holidays, better call the consultants."


And so they call and I work because, like retail, small-scale consulting depends in a large part on results accrued in December to make the rest of the year's numbers work. I was going over billing records from 2001 and saw that I worked 19 hours on Christmas Eve. I don't remember that day specifically, but I have vivid memories of calling a colleague before heading to bed around 4:30 a.m. to catch her as she started her day. Never have two people with opposite schedules worked so well together.


And so goes life at the close of the year. Luckily, I anticipated the crunch and am largely satisfied with the status of present shopping, wrapping and shipping. I have a schedule laid out that will include gingerbread house construction, cooking baking, card writing and a few other holiday frills but, despite my recent promise, I'm not sure canning will be among them.


This being said, I hope you'll stay tuned. We received a gift of pink grapefruit the other day, some of which is already earmarked for ginger-lime grapefruit marmalade to be made in the slower days of January. There are cranberries in the freezer, waiting for transformation into ruby red spicy chutney. Best of all, perhaps, is the can of glaceed chestnuts from which I am hoping to produce chestnut paste - perfect for Easter cake filling.


Winter may yet be setting upon us but already I am thinking of Spring.

This morning I am facing straight on the classic canner's connundrum: you can't have your canned goods and eat them too. I've written about this before - the frisson of hestitation before giving jam to a friend, the ever-so-slight quiver of regret before opening pickled brussels to grace the dinner table. And, as I wrap up a jar of jerk sauce for a brother-in-law and a jar of chocolate sauce for another, and pack up a jar of cranberry chutney to take to the mountains for Thanksgiving, it is clear: if I wish to have such a varied pantry and enjoy the pleasures of being open-handedly generous with the fruits of my labors, my self-imposed canning maternity leave must end. The Little Diva is nearly 10 months old now (can it really be so?) and mama must again turn her attention to provisioning if life is to continue as we know it both in terms of household management and maternal health (in addition to filling my canning shelves anew, I am ready to reacquaint myself with my own personal joys and habits outside of mothering). I entered these infant months with shelves full and never worried that a plain meal would go unadorned - there have been pickles and jams and chutneys and sauces and marinades to perk up even the most basic of broiled meats or omelets or breads. It was a wonderful gift to myself, this inventory, and now it is nearly depleted.


So again into the breach. This is an awkward time of year to fill up the canning kettle. Harvest has past and there is very little on the horizon in terms of produce. I'm thinking more cranberry chutney, lime chutney, more marmalade, pickled greens, pickled turnips and juice-based jellies - pomegranate or even carrot-tangerine.


It's good to be back. I love the smell of vinegar in the morning.

I commented to my husband the other day that grocery prices seemed a little high lately. I hadn't noticed much of an increase in the prices of either food or clothes since I graduated from undergrad in 1992 so this latest punch upward caught me off guard. I wasn't suprised, then, to hear on the radio today that wholesale prices have had their highest increase in, what?, almost 15 years (just about the length of time since I graduated).


The grocery item that initially shocked me into noticing the problem was a loaf of bread. Not anything especially exotic, just your standard whole-wheat with what my husband refers to as "nuts and twigs". Price at my local Giant? Over $3.00. $3.10, to be exact. And it looked smaller, too. I swear that this same loaf of bread cost about $2.50 not too long ago. I didn't buy it.


Over in the baking aisle I bought three five pound bags of flour for .99 each. Each bag has the potential to make me four and a half loaves of bread (with the addition, of course, of some yeast, water, wheat germ, and a few other sundry things). I figure that making a loaf of bread might cost me about $1.00, up to $1.15 if the flour isn't on sale. So I've got some yeast proofing as I type. It simply is not worth paying more than double to have someone else do the work for me when the cost differential is so great (and, I might add, the opportunity cost is low: I stil have a good time in the kitchen, even if it's not the most glamour-filled work in the world, still have good time for talking with my kids, still have the satisfaction of eating some decent bread and it's not like someone is paying me tons of money to spend my time elsewhere).


I've found a solution to the bread thing. But I'm a moving target. I work at home, have my kids with me and how I spend my days is largely up to me. I can run out to pick up some wheat germ if I've run out without explaining myself to anyone. I can take a delivery of some great new King Arthur product. I can set my bread machine in the morning, if I want to go that route, and have bread waiting for us at dinner after I've done swim lessons, story time at the library, art class and stopped at the playground. It's pretty clear to me that although I've found a solution the answers aren't so simple for most.


So it seems that Alan Greenspan has finally found the inflation that he's been looking for all these years. I wonder what happens now. Let 'em eat cake?

I'm reading Mimi Sheraton's new memior Eating My Words, in which she recounts her career in food writing in general and restaurant criticism in general. For those of us outside the industry but who still enjoy a well put-together meal the book is a revelation. One part in particular that I read just before bed last night has been swirling around my head today. In it, Ms. Sheraton describes the complicated calculus, financial as well as psychological, that goes into menu writing and the setting of prices. This, as I serve my son buttered noodles and broccoli and try to convince my daughter to snack on a plain rice cake, has me ruminating on some of the more expensive meals of my life - as well as some of the cheapest.

According to Ms. Sheraton, when you sit down to a meal in a restaurant you are not actually buying food but rather real estate. That is why your appetizers, entrees and desserts come one on top of the other in your average low-range chain place - your Olive Gardens, Chili's and Red Lobsters. I swear I've eaten in some of these establishments and you simply cannot move for all the bread baskets, salad plates, empty soda glasses, paper napkin wrapper thingies and the rest of the flotsam and jetsam that makes up a mass-market dinner out. Your food comes fast because they need you in and out in order to turn over your table for the next $40 check.

Maybe this is why I'm increasingly willing to eat out less but pay more at nicer places when I do go out. So that I can rent that small piece of real estate for an ever-so-slightly longer period of time - life is complicated and moves fast and every now and again I'd like a meal that's better than what I can produce at home and is actually more relaxing. Sitting around a crowded table with my two kids and husband trying to grab someone's attention to take away the empty glasses before the baby knocks them over is not my idea of a good time and the last time we went to a national chain place a kid from a neighboring table amused himself by throwing tortilla chips at my husband.

On the other hand, one of my more concrete parenting goals is to make sure my children grow up suitable for polite society - that they know have to make dinner conversation, use a fork and knife and have diverse enough palates to eat just about anything that's served to them (or at least be able to fake it well). This goal is very often in complete opposition with my desire for a well-crafted, well-paced and pleasant meal in soothing/interesting (depending upon my mood) surroundings. Restaurants that offer these attributes generally aren't thrilled when customers show up with a small box of crayons and a request for a high chair.

Coincidentally, my husband sent me an article yesterday describing the new welcome that families are receiving in many new, upscale, suburban restaurants. One of those featured, a place called Christopher's, is among our favorites and is a place we get back to everytime we're in Philly and cruising down the Main Line. Their kids' menu treats children as if they have taste buds and the adult menu is nothing short of great. We get a good dinner with a glass of wine or two, our son gets either a "real" pizza (no frozen immitation here) or some pasta with housemade marinara and parmesan and the check comes to about $75. Spendy, perhaps, for your average suburban family dinner check but no one throws chips at you and nothing has been frozen or portion packed prior to its arrival at your table.

In this vein I can't wait to try Georges Perrier's new Georges'. That Georges Perrier has developed a restaurant that is 1) anything approaching casual and 2) includes a childrens' menu is something that simply astonishes me. Perrier is primarily known as the chef-proprieter of Philadelphia's Le Bec Fin, once regarded as one of the best restaurants in the country and still Philly's dream restaurant, although one with an increasingly hidebound reputation (its sister restaurant Brasserie seems to be aging better). Anyway, in his e-mail to me about the article in which Georges' is discussed, my husband stated, "Let me guess. There are Freedom Fries in my future at Georges'."

You betcha, cherie. And I won't forget the crayons.

Every year around this time I reach for Edna Lewis's cookbooks, especially A Taste of Country Cooking. Ms. Lewis was born and raised in Freetown, Virginia, a community founded by freed slaves (one of them her grandfather). After years of reading about her life and culinary experiences in this small town I have just discovered that, although it no longer exists, what was Freetown is just 15 or so miles from where I sit as I type this. From what I can tell, the area has been subsumed into Orange, Virgina - a town that I have not explored but have found charming when passing through. The astonishing information that I am so close to the birthplace of someone I consider a living national treasure will guarantee that I take a closer look around at the earliest opportunity. I mean, Montpelier, Monticello or, hey, even Ash Lawn Highland, sure. I mean, yeah, it's all history and presidents and such, but c'mon...we're talking Edna Lewis here - the woman who can tell you how to make a fruitcake that is both steeped in tradition (not too mention a great deal of brandy) and edible. This is a woman you want to get to know. She's opinionated and passionate and became a chef in a time when finding women (let along African-American women) in the profession was rare indeed.


Anyway, among my favorite passages in the book (which is composed of both recipes and memoir) describes Christmas in Freetown, complete with Roman Candles, a stiff morning drink for the men and a bountiful array of festive foodstuffs from the larder of this largely self-sufficient town. I will read and re-read the essay throughout the holday season as an antidote to modern expectations of Christmas and our demands of joy through acquisition and entertainment rather than fellowship and community. Along with a review of the Christmas-related portions of the Little House books, Ms. Lewis helps keep me on an even keel and focused on that which I find truly important.


It was with all of this in mind that I decided to make a fruitcake for the first time ever. Actually, I'm going to make a Black Cake. And I've got to start now since the fruit has to macerate for two weeks and then the cooked cake sits at room temp for a week before icing. In other words, it's a project.


And, speaking of projects, I've got another cut out for me. I need to make more hot sauce for my brother in law. I made four pints for him for Christmas, knowing that he loves condiments in general and hot sauce in particular. In a casual conversation with my sister I mentioned the habañeros and how colorful they were as I was chopping. She was silent for a moment and then said, "You did know that D. is allergic to them."


"Allergic to what?" I asked.


"Habañeros," she replied, "His throad closes. Can't breathe."


Hmm. Well, thank goodness I mentioned those peppers or we might never have known until it was too late. I've known this man for close to 15 years and I never knew of this allergy. My sister assumed I did know so she wouldn't have questioned the hot sauce and I wouldn't have thought to issue any warning (and I don't generally include a label with a list ingredients in home canned goods unless it's going to someone I don't know well).


So my next project is to: 1) find a use for the habañero sauce (we don't care for it here) and 2) make another batch of hot sauce. This time I'm sticking to jalapeños.

From the nostalgia department:I've got an experiment thawing in my fridge. Nothing sexy, just a container full of leftover vegetables and gravy and the rinsed remains of spaghtetti sauce jars. Each was added to the bin separately as they became available, and collectively they replicate my great grandmother's "recipe" for vegetable soup. Grandmom's soup was quite simply the best ever. Served with a loaf of fresh bread and homemade butter there was no better cure for the blues or any given physical ailment. It was delicious, healthy and incredibly frugal (as befits a Depression survivor, who raised her three kids to hale adulthood during that time).

My experiment is to see if I can replicate Grandmom's soup. Clearly, hers must have been at least slightly different each time, since leftovers are never predictable. I remember rinsing spaghetti sauce jars (she made her own, natch) with water and adding that in, and I have a very vivid memory of Grandmom dumping the last inch or so of beef gravy from the gravy bowl on top of some dinner's leftover limas. Strata by strata the container filled up until finally the thawed contents were warmed, fortified with the addition of maybe some broth (but maybe not), salt and pepper and perhaps a bit of chopped onion or cooked pasta or rice. That's it. Every time different and every time perfect.

The basic procedure I remember well and have followed since late winter. And now my freezer soup container is thawing and I have my fingers firmly crossed. It's not so much that I don't think the resulting soup will be good, because I know it will be (or, if not, I can make it so). It's that I know that I can never capture her kitchen, with the oilcloth covered table and her three daily newspapers spread around, along with the cooling cup of coffee (she poured but never finished) and throaty been-around-the-block-a-time-or-two laugh. These, I fear, were the soup's true seasonings.