Obsessive Pioneer

All I can say is that if Pa could see me now, well, Ma Ingalls might have something to worry about. Because our shelves our now lines with rows of glass jars: blueberry jam, wild grape jam, pickled beans, bread and butter pickles, Kosher dill chips. (About those last: did the Jews actually have time to can anything? I can't imagine. Maybe we just put our pickle barrels on wheels and fled with them across the desert.) Eat your heart out, Pa. I'm all sweaty in my canning frock.

What I am is totally obsessed. Also totally going to die of botulism. Because I'm careful? But I'm not that careful. I'm kind of new to this whole canning thing, and part of me wants to do something called "the open kettle method" which is how my mother makes jam. Which all the books warn you against doing because you don't pasteurize the jars and will surely botulize your entire family. But it just seems so honest somehow. But part of me wants to eat pickles and live to tell.

Hey--wake up! We're still talking about canning!

No? Are we done talking about canning? Were you less bored when I merely waffled on and on about freezing peaches?

Okay. New wondertime columns are here and here. And thank you so much for your kind words about our fish. Both fish. Our fishes.

Summer

feels, oddly, like it's already ending, doesn't it? Or is that just me and my usual preemptive melancholy? Everything is flying by.

New wondertime columns are here and here.

Be well!

Some Clarification

So, the latest wondertime posts are here and here.

And I just thought I should mention that--well, you know all that Thanksgiving food I wrote about? That's what I was working on for one of my deadlines! (And they are killer recipes, by the way--you just wait until November comes! You'll fall to the ground, aswoon over the blessing that is your own leftover turkey.) I hadn't realized it was unclear until some of you wrote in kindly to say: "If you've got so much work, then maybe skip the whole gravy thing until you're a little less busy, you crazy head!" And I slapped my forehead. Because I am crazy. But I'm not that crazy. In my parallel magazine writing life, Thanksgiving comes in July. Hence the big deadline. Q.E.D. (A little geometry-proof humor for you there. I'm sure you all love a good geometry-proof joke as much as the next chortling nerd.)

I also wanted to mention that my friend Peter is now recording the posts, and if you listen, please weigh in on the sound quality, okay? (And by "weigh in" I mean, of course, "rave about his techno-studliness.")

xo