(Note: The date on this post isn't right. It's March 6, not February 29. I'm curious as to how this happened, but not nearly enough to actually figure it out. It is what it is.)

I wish I was making it up when I tell you that Brainiac has me watching, as I type, a television show about runways. Runways! I am so going to retaliate with a show about, I don't know, sewing for dollhouses or balloon sculptures or something. Runways! Honestly.

We've had a little bit of spring feeling in the past few days - a most welcome development. I know it can't last, of course. Our date of last frost is still some weeks away and anything can happen. Even so I'm definitely feeling springy, with all that such a feeling brings with it. I'm sketching (and re-sketching and) the garden plan, double-checking the supply of canning jars and lids and, most unbelievably to just about everyone who lives with me, doing all these nesty spring cleaning type jobs.

Starting small, of course. I don't want to hurt myself with sudden cleaning moves to which my body is most unaccustomed. I'm gearing up for a major meme-type collaborative effort but, again, have no wish to rush into anything. I'm all about the ramp-up here at Hot Water Bath and the little cleaning-like project that's given me the most satisfaction so far is organizing the living room bookshelf.

I don't actually have a before pic of the bookshelf but trust me when I say that its condition didn't exactly illustrate the message I deep-down wanted to send: that two grown-up people with a teensy amount of au courant taste if not quite a matching budget (hence the prefab faux cherry model bought at a discount from a big box store because the packaging was damaged). We've gone from three shelves crammed with workbooks, scraps of paper festooned with the phone number of long-forgotten need and goodness knows what keeping the bottom doors from closing (possibilities: a large bag with a number of plastic coins mimicking various denominations of U.S. currency, a tin of long since dried markers, a white board with a faded clock face).

But now! Now we have this:



O.K. I can see in this shot that the Girl's little pink bible has fallen in back of the Uncle Sam bank. Whatever. It's so much better than it was and I'm not going to fret about a little imperfection. The important thing is that without all the junk and not-often-used miscellanea we can see that which we truly value - pictures of people important to us, heirlooms and books that see frequent reference (I'm amused to note that The Book of Common Prayer ended up on top of one of Brainiac's books about Scotch).

Like I said, I'm starting small. In this case, though, small seems quite large, indeed.

Did you ever read these weekly Works for Me Wednesday (WFMW) lists? There's nothing I love better than a tip (or two or three) to make my life easier so I've been really attracted to them lately. It's like reading Heloise on steroids and I've learned everything from how to hand sew button holes (good for the button hole challenged me) to ideas for new songs to sing to the kids on long car trips to how to buy a properly fitting bra. Really, it's like having a couple hundred BFFs who can't wait to e-mail or call with their latest great ideas.

I've actually been tossing around a few canning-related WMFW tips but figured I could wait until gardening and canning season are at hand, to keep things topical and all. Then I had an experience driving home from my parents' last week that I've been talking about since then with all the moms I know and it seemed like a pretty good topic. So here goes, my first Works for Me Wednesday tip, from my house to yours.

The kids and I take a few car trips a year without Brainiac. For this reason (and because our cars are always wretchedly old specimens - no in-car movies here!) we've always carried AAA. The expense has proven useful over the years and, whenever I'm tempted to drop the coverage, I'm reminded of being on the Beltway pulled over, pregnant and in the rain, with a flat. Or the time that I drove over some big old construction bolt and lost a tire. And just last week I had my front driver's side tire changed just a couple miles from the Lehigh Tunnel - there was a two-inch bulge in the sidewall that developed after I hit the Mother of All Potholes and immediately knew that I could not drive my babies another mile with that tire. (At this point I'd love to say that my tip is that I learned to change my own tires, but no.)

It's with this backdrop that I make my little WFMW offering to the world: Make sure you have an operational spare tire, and if at all possible keep a full-size spare. If you don't have a working spare, AAA can't help you. So even a "donut" spare is a good idea and I'm a little surprised at how many people I found in a short, totally unscientific survey that don't keep even this minimal solution around.

A full-size spare is helpful because not only can you resume your driving at a normal speed and with normal conditions, but because it buys you some time in having to get a new tire. Since I resent automotive-related expenditures of just about any kind and the need to purchase new tires always seems to come just when I have something more fun I'd like to do, having the full-size tire as a back-up can give us some breathing room to complete the trip without seeing the inside of an tire dealership, shop for price or gather the money from the budget without worry.

In a WFMW nutshell: Keep a full-size spare if you can (or make sure your donut is workable if you can't).

A week of escapist reading has informed me that I am not alone in my rather low level of enthusiasm for February. To wit:

“February, and all I have ever known it to mean, brings with it a touch of dread to the mornings.”

Sylvia Jorrin. Sylvia's Farm. Bloomsbury, 2004

And then there's this:

"“After a stressful deadline in February – that bleak month when Ann Arbor hibernates and people hurry, hunched over in sky jackets through the dark – I decided to reward myself with a good meal.”

Jenni Ferrari-Adler. Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant Riverhead Books, 2007.

This, not from a published work, touched me the most deeply:

“I hate February.”

The pre-school director, a friend and fellow sufferer.

But that, as they say, is enough of that. With the last of this wretched month within grasp and March preparing its entrance, I am ready to pack up the entire experience of these last three or so weeks into my Big Box of Denial to be shoved into the top shelf of the closet on the third floor in that room that really creeps me out. In other words, I am done.

I have to confess, things are looking up. I was away with the kids for a few days and arrived home to a package that had come all the way from England. I'd no idea what it could have been and was delighted with a surprise from French Knots.




Isn't that just the most darling thing? I've been all organizey about my laundry lately, so this is right up my alley and just so sweet. Plus, she enclosed a chocolate bar - a chocolate bar which I did not share with anyone. Yippee!

As if that weren't enough cheering, the good folks at Fresh Preserving (the home of Ball canning) read my sad little confession that I don't own a copy of of classic Ball Blue Book and graciously sent me one, accompanied by some freezer jam containers and pectin. Now, I can't say what thrills me more - that these nice folks really are nice or that I can now say I've had my very own bloggy moment of having been noticed. Perhaps it's a little of both. Because I'm never satisfied, I asked if I could maybe interview one of the Fresh Preserving canning experts. With some luck and planning, that'll come in late March or April just as garden planting starts.

With these not-so-little sparks of happiness I'm definitely ready to stow that Big Box of Denial. March may come in like a lion, but you won't hear me complaining.

My father often dismissed the entire month of February as too cold, too messy, too bothersome a month (for someone who lives in Buffalo year-round, this is saying something). I've always been a bit amused by his feelings and never quite understood them. Why, February has Valentine's Day, the Super Bowl, Candlemas, Ground Hog Day (fun!) and, more recently, the Girl's birthday. What's not to love? Myself, I'd always pegged April as the cruelest month, teasing bits of spring in between hard frosts and frigid nights and then, of course, J. died in April (and K. and C., all within two weeks of each other), hardening me against the entire month forever.

As I get older, though, I'm coming around to my father's point of view. Looking back over my journals I can see that he may well have been onto something all this time. Most of the truly painful events that I've felt the need to record over the past several years have fallen in February. A baby born still, a job loss, illnesses both severe and mild, dissolution of a marriage, scary tests and scarier results - all in the shortest month of the year. That February brings ice storms in my part of the world suddenly seems very appropriate, our very own Narnian "always winter" in one neat, 28(9)-day package.

It seems right to me this year that Lent covers most of February. Reflecting in this time of repentance I know I have much correct and also much to forgive. Perhaps this year with the reminder of the peace that passeth all understanding I can put the darkness of an unkind month behind me and everyone who has shared my bleak days. Perhaps I will be able to keep the words of a traditional Anglican blessing that I have always found beautiful even closer to my heart. "Life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who make this earthly pilgrimage with us. So, be swift to love. Make haste to do kindness. Shower abundant hospitality on friend and stranger. Walk in justice that you might follow the path of truth and love. And may the One who comes to us unbidden who for our lives was broken and who guides us into wholeness and holiness of life be among you and remain with you always."

Perhaps. I may even start liking April again.

Sue responded to my onomatopoeia post with a note wondering if I had been having a migraine. I don't actually know much about migraine headaches - my own kinda, sorta, we don't really know what's wrong with you diagnosis is that I get cluster headaches. One of the hallmarks of clusters is that one might have several in a given period of time followed by time headache-free. Mine, assuming they are cluster headaches (which seems to be the best guess), are unusual because they include the flashes of light and often nauseate me - two things more characteristic of migraines - and they can last more than 15 hours. I was lucky because from the time I became pregnant with the Boy up until about a year ago I rarely suffered from headaches of any kind. I seem to be in a cluster now and, although it's not the worst I've experienced, it's still kicking my butt. Badly.

With the backdrop of feeling frazzled from a newly dissipated headache (the pain is gone, but the general rattledness associated is the gift that keeps on giving) coupled with arriving home later than expected this afternoon meant that my planned dinner of pasta shells with crab and peas (in cream sauce - yum) wasn't going to happen. So here I was, late, with the kids in smash!boom! mode and no thought what to do about feeding them. I managed to pull it off and after dinner it occurred to me that my own personal methods for dealing with these kinds of situations might be useful to someone else.

Tonight I ended up making a crustless quiche of five eggs, half a small onion, a cup of frozen peas, a few ounces of leftover ham (diced), a chopped carrot, a bit of shredded manchego cheese and half a cup of flour. All of this mixed together and baked at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes did the trick for an entree, served with brown rice simmered in beef broth, mashed sweet potatoes (roasted over the weekend and stored in the fridge against just this kind of need) with cinnamon. My total hands-on time was well under 30 minutes and I felt fairly pleased with myself when all was on the table and with only a slight amount of trauma on my part.

Crustless quiches are a great choice for busy cooks - eggs, a bit of flour and pretty much whatever else you like are all you need. I've used kale, chard, mushrooms, olives, parsnips, broccoli, all kinds of cheeses and even salsa. Not only are crustless quiches delicious, but they have the added virtue of using up bits of leftovers that aren't enough for anything else.

I try not to feed my family too much in the way of pasta, but do rely on two forms for those days when I'm really pressed. Angel hair, orzo and couscous each cook up very quickly and take on all kinds of diced or chopped veggies easily (I like to include a bit of sauteed garlic and onion, too). A light sauce of chicken broth thickened with cream and warmed through makes a nice topping that comes together easily.

One of the chief benefits of doing as much canning as I do is that there are a number of products in my repertoire that amount in reality to nothing more than homemade convenience foods. Having roasted tomato sauce, applesauce, mixed pickles and more on hand means that, when push comes to shove, there is something that can be relied upon to dress up a quickly produced and more humble offering. Scrambled eggs with applesauce isn't an unheard of dinner plate around here and nor is a lightly seasoned roasted chicken breast with mixed pickle and fruit salad. Knowing I have a cupboard full of ready-to-go foods made by me with ingredients that I either grew, picked or purchased in season is the ultimate in dinner planning.

With these simple meal solutions generally at hand I can cope with just about anything come the dinner hour, whether it be a headache, a late meeting or just your standard-issue energetic offspring bouncing around the kitchen demanding to know "is dinner ready yet?"

I'm sitting here on our very uncomfortable futon, shivering, with a cup of tangerine-mint tea by my side hoping against hope that I'm not coming down with round 2 of the noro virus that's sweeping through town. The cats are asleep on my feet so at least part of me is toasty. I simply cannot be sick - I've got Sunday school tomorrow (note to self: find bag of feathers for discussion of the Holy Spirit) and all the get-ready-for-the-week stuff that goes on Sunday afternoons. Besides, if I'm going to be sick I insist it be on a work day.

It's precisely these kinds of days - cool gray and feeling unwell - that turn my mind to garden plans. Anyone whose ever bought so much as a ball of twine from a garden supply firm finds themselves buried in catalogs this time of year and I am no exception. Inevitably, I fill out order forms with all kinds of exotic flora - achilliea!, Liatris spicata - and just as inevitably end up doing the same old thing. I have neither the time nor the inclination to coddle a lot of decorative gardens, however much they're appreciated, so the usual purchases of bulkpack impatiens, petunias and alyssum usually suffice while any growing from seed happens in the vegetable patch (beans, zucchini, radishes and so on - all reliable workhorses).

This year I'd like to try something new, something not enabled by the mere completely filled-out order form, something that requires more heart and less cash. But what? I'm tempted in a thousand directions by three books intended to introduce children to the joys of gardening. Turns out they're just as handy for stuck-in-a-rut adults.

Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots by Sharon Lovejoy includes some very clever ideas for gardening with children, emphasizing plants that grow quickly and produce some "consumable" result - bathing with an herbal blend, making musical instruments from gourds, and so on. I've made bean pole tee pees before but her sunflower house variation is so sweet and so much of the kind of summer magic I'd like my kids to remember that I literally started hopping up and down in my seat, eager to begin sketching out just how to do it. Lovejoy's directions for growing potatoes in galvanized buckets is nothing short of miraculous - I've read how easy it is to grow potatoes but every direction I've ever ready left me scratching my head, wondering what "magic happens here" was left out. Lovejoy is clear and concise and perfectly understandable.

The Children's Kitchen Garden by Georgeann and Ethel Brennan is a more traditional garden book, less moonbeams-and-magic than Roots. It's charm to me is that it describes an actual garden, grown by actual children - no theory, in other words. The bulk of the text discusses the requirements of a host of vegetables and herbs and the included recipes could be well understood by children older than, say, six or seven (with grown-up help).

The Enchanted Gardening Book by Alice Herck rounds out my current garden inspirations. The projects are more basic than those in Roots and it includes much less practical information than Kitchen Garden - it's magic is that it seems to call to an older time, when people did such things as make rose petal beads, when they memorized poems at the behest of the governess, and give tea parties using real china for dolls and teddy bears. I'd love to know more about the author and her motivation for producing this lovely, nostalgic book but neither Google nor authorsearch turn up anything.

With these three books by my chairside I am motivated to do things differently at last. I don't need more seeds, I realize. I've already got bean seeds for tee pees and sunflower seeds for a house (with pumpkin - I have those seeds, too - furniture). I've already got seeds for 4 O'clocks and snow peas and Easter Egg radishes and patty pan squash - not to mention everything I need to make sure that the cherry tomatoes grow within reach of snacking kids' hands or that there are ample paths between rows of strawberries. All I needed was to see what I already have in a new light, the garden equivalent of those people who will come rearrange your furniture, showing you the new decorating options you were too hidebound to see (or, my favorite, those fashion experts who come to your house to show you new ways to wear your own clothes).

Like with so many things in life, what I needed was exactly the same as what I already have. Funny how that works out.

One of the questions I receive most often concerns where I find the recipes I use for jams and pickles. With more and more attention being paid to seasonal enjoyment of locally-grown produce there is also a great interest in preserving whatever excess is available. This makes a great deal of sense to me and I have often declared that my interest in canning and other methods of preservation have less to do with saving money than it does with having better - in every sense - products for the money I do spend. My pickles don't contain artificial food coloring, my jams are free of high-fructose (or any) corn syrup, and my mushrooms aren't processed a world away from my own kitchen. None of these variables guarantee perfect food every time, of course, and that I truly enjoy the time involved is an excellent bonus.

Since I've begun chronicling my canning adventures (way back in 2002), I've seen a marked increase in interest in canning among people who may not have ever before considered it. In exploring that interest, the first question is often what do I need. The second question is what do I make? I insist to all comers that we ain't doin' your Grandma's canning here, but if this is food preservation for a modern cook with modern sensibilities, were are the good recipes?

Very good, basic recipes can be found in every box of pectin and on every carton of jars. These tend to be very straightforward - strawberry jam, dill pickles and so on - and consist of just a few steps. These days I've pretty much left pectin behind in favor of other types of jams (I don't make much jelly of any kind) but I still maintain that a new canner could do worse than to buy a box, read the insert, give it a go and see what happens. Once you've more or less got the hang of the recipes that come with your gear, you can branch out a bit.

The mother of all canning books surely is the Ball Blue Book of Preserving. I don't actually own one myself, but I've had a bash at a read and it really is very comprehensive. The recipes are meticulously prepared and cover just about every type of product one could conceivably produce. It's a little heavy on old-fashioned varieties for my taste (and really heavy on the much-avoided sweet-and-sour stuff) although one could certainly do worse to start out.

I adore Edon Waycott's Preserving the Taste, which is sadly out of print. The blueberry marmalade is a standard in my kitchen, as is her marinated mushrooms. Ms. Waycott specializes in providing jams to restaurants in southern California and so she uses a number of fruits not available to me, but I don't hold this against her because her text very clearly demonstrates how to use what you have to make something truly delicious.

Another out of print gem is Helen Witty's Fancy Pantry. I Google Mrs. Witty from time to time hoping to find that she - or a fellow fan - has put together an omnibus website, but no. Anyway, from jerk sauce to hot sauce to melba sauce, Fancy Pantry offers some kind of nibble or condiment for ever imaginable occasion and scores of little treats to enhance even the plainest, most workaday meals. I can't recommend it enough.

If the abundant creativity of Waycott and Witty don't tempt you, look to the classics Stocking Up and Putting Food By. How the authors of these books manage to keep updating and keeping new editions coming, I'll never know, but they do and I am forever grateful. Beginning with the science of food preservation and ending with recipes for a nice selection of outputs, neither will steer you wrong and both should have a place on a canner's shelf.

Then there are the surprises, the sources you couldn't predict and which in my experience provide the neatest little recipe treasures. Community cookbooks often hold a jam recipe or two and these can often be relied on quite seriously - no one submits a bad recipe to the preschool cookbook committee, do they? And last year my girlfriends and I decided to use the last of the blackberries and peaches to sort of wing a jam, just to minimize waste and leftovers. The result was incredible and something that I only serve very, very special guests. Not all experiments work so well - my flirtation with Orangina jelly never panned out (and, truthfully, the whole idea kind of amazes me - what was I thinking? I can only blame the fact that I was pregnant at the time) but I'm still thinking that beer jelly holds interesting promise.

So you never know. Start somewhere, master the basics and develop a sense of what can be done safely and then...well, just about anything is possible. I hope that when you develop that killer jam or noteworthy pickle you come back to share the news with me.

I battled a headache for much of the morning today. I say battled not out of any sense of drama (although goodness knows I surely posses such a thing, in generous amounts) but because all my usual remedies - caffeine, protein, hiding in a dark and silent room, copious OTC pain relief - did little to diminish the pain.

While huddled in my dark bedroom whimpering like a puppy, I wondered why my kids' love of onomatopoeia rises in direct proportion to any pain I might be experiencing. The first twinges behind my right eyeball bring an immediate need for a toy earth mover to back up across the family room (beep, beep, beeeeeeeeep). By the time little silver flashes cross my field of vision, an ambulance speeds its way to an emergency at the domino run (oooooh-waaaaah, oooooh-waaaaaah). When I'm ready to weep, tears falling in unison with the pulsing in my temple, there is inevitably a Lego tower in need of demolition (petchoooom!). It is a most vexing phenomenon and something I find really odd - I swear that the little ambulance never sees any action unless I am about to take a drill to my head, a la Maximilian Cohen.

Anyway, all is quiet now and it turns out all I needed was a little time and the distraction of the first nice-ish day this year. We had the kids run around in the mud a bit and managed to soak up some vitamin D conversion rays ourselves, coming inside just in time to whip up a few snackies and sit down to the big pretty dang boring game.

Among the treats turned out post-headache were a batch of wings inspired by the Crock Pot Blogger Lady's sweet and spicy wings. Being from the greater metropolitan Buffalo, New York area as I am, I find the idea of "sweet and spicy" wings sort of, well, icky. But! It was her method that intrigued me. Wings can be tricky and there are all sorts of opportunities for failure - they may be soggy, chewy, too hot (as in no flavor, just heat) and so on. And? Word to the uninformed: there are no "flavors" of Buffalo wings. Buffalo wings are the flavor. Sweet, spicy, teriyaki, whatever, sure. They're your flavors. But please, don't ever let me hear you talk about all the kinds of Buffalo wings you ate at happy hour. Good?

Moving on, then. The original recipe came from, of all places, the Semi-Homemade corner of the universe and I have to give props where props are due: this is a really clever method of preparing the wings and solves a lot of the problems home wing-makers have long faced.
(Totally unrelated aside: As I type this, the NFL has ruled that one more play must be run to complete the Super Bowl. Bill "Not A Cool Guy" Belichick has left the field, having apparently realized somewhat belatedly that no amount of creative rule interpretation can guarantee a championship team. Yes, it sucks to be 35 seconds away from a perfect season and have it blown to pieces. Really, though? Walking away like that before the game is truly over? My four year-old manages better sportsmanship.)

What was that about moving on? Yes - solving problems. The whole broiling the wings before a nice long soak in the sauce is a lovely alternative to frying or broiling alone. Frying at home is messy and broiling alone deprives the wings of depth of flavor. I broiled my wings in a single layer for about 20 minutes at a fairly high setting and then put them and the sauce in the crock on low for a couple hours. After this treatment, the wings were crazy tender but a leeeetle soft in the skin for me. A second 15-minute broil (on low this time) solved that problem nicely and a toss in a bit of the leftover sauce made an excellent batch, good enough even for this hardened Buffalo born-and-bred wing snob.

But what about the sauce? Simple. One part unsalted butter to three parts Frank's Red Hot, with a tiny splash of white vinegar for additional added kick and a smidge of ground black pepper just for fun. The good people at Frank's make a pre-mixed wing sauce that may be lovely, but homemade is easy and tasty so why not make it fresh? Oh, and also? Tabasco sauce, another fine peppery product, is great for many applications but isn't the best choice for your Buffalo wing needs. Other sauces, maybe, but not the Buffalo.

Now that my headache is gone, the game over and the wine glass empty while the work week looms it's time to call a it a day. Sweet dreams, everyone.