Yes We Can..(or we may be on the verge of canning)

I had to laugh when I read Daughter Number Three's recent post about her purchase of a new book and DVD, The Fresh Girl's Guide to Easy Canning by Ana Micka, "which looks to be a really helpful intro to something I may be on the verge of doing." DN3 notes that the book is nicely designed, with graphics by Aleksandra Stancevic of Entropy Design Lab.

I feel like I'm also "on the verge of" canning, though I've yet to plunge those jars into a boiling water bath. I've been slowly gathering the equipment, and have spent some time on canning jar sites, comparing Ball jars – locally made made in Indiana – with Weck jars – from Germany, super cool. (But I have a lot of jars already, so will only need to pick up some lids.)

DN3 goes on: "(I'm thinking of canning spaghetti sauce from all the tomatoes I am theoretically growing.)" Ah yes, the theoretical garden...I know that one well. We have deer who make it really difficult to garden.

In an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, called "Sprout Savings in Your Backyard," Ana Micka says that she strives to produce 120 to 150 jars of homemade soups, tomato sauce and veggies each season, enough for three meals a week during the non-gardening months.

Wow, that's a lot of work – but then you could save time and money in the long run, with high-quality food on hand. I'll be more likely to try a few small batches of jam, with berries from the farmers' market. There's another good guide called The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving that addresses other ways to put up food, too, year round. And my favorite take on traditional food preservation comes from Jessica Prentice, in Full Moon Feast. Jessica helped found Three Stone Hearth, a community supported kitchen (CSK) in San Francisco. Here's a photo of sauerkraut production at Three Stone Hearth, from a blogpost over at Cheese Slave.

I think it's exciting that people are reclaiming home arts around food: gardening, cooking, and preserving. Here's a photo I took last November at the National Museum of American History in Washington D.C., from the days when home canning was getting a big marketing push (compete with cheerful blonde mother and daughter) from the feds.

Becoming a 'Locavore'

I am enjoying the challenge of becoming more of a 'locavore'. This word was coined by food writer Jessica Prentice, who lives in the Bay Area and is the author of Full Moon Feast, a very unique and engaging book about food. A couple of years ago I wrote an interview with Jessica that you can find in the magazine Mix, a bimonthly publication of the Twin Cities Natural Food Co-ops.

Now I am working on some projects for our Local Growers Guild. This is an organization that provides support, education, and marketing for local growers and farmers who use sustainable practices in producing flowers, food, and fibers. (The 3 Fs in our region, where sheep and alpacas coexist peacefully, the alpacas frequently guarding the fields.)

It is a great privilege to get to know these growers, who go so far above and beyond the world of corporate agribusiness to bring us food that tastes the way it should: real food, produced by people obsessed with value and the adventure of farming.

There is an onion you can click on on the left that will take you to the site of the Mix, where you can read more about Jessica Prentice. I've also created a link to Three Stone Hearth, the community supported kitchen she runs with friends.