Canning Season

Fruit is ripening on trees all over Utah and that can only mean one thing...time to get out the kettle and the mason jars! I love canning, and it has become something of a predictable fall cycle in my life. It goes something like this:

Phase 1-The romantic

There's something so wholesome and rewarding about preserving food in jars. It's like taking a step back into a slower-paced life and a simpler time--full of nostalgic reminiscences about standing at a kitchen sink between my mom and my grandmother.

Phase 2-The philosopher

One of the great things about canning is that it forces you to take a moment from a frenetic life pace to stand still. While you steam, peel, chop and process, your mind is free to meditate and ponder things simple and great.

Phase 3-The homemaker

I love to see the finished jars in all their jewel-toned glory lining my shelves. It must be the gatherer/preserver side of my genetic make-up. There is something so satisfying about opening a jar of summer that I have saved and serving it to my family in January.

Phase 4-The mother

Nothing builds my kids' esteem more than working. They are curious about all the apparatus and thrilled when mom entrusts them with a knife and encourages them to chop; or a spoon and depends on them for the stirring.

Phase 5-Mommy dearest

My children are hiding from me in the basement; I think I saw my eleven-year-old looking up child labor statutes on the Internet. There has been a household apricot boycott.

Phase 6-The housekeeper

I washed every pot, pan, spoon, spatula, mixing bowl, and measuring cup I own 7 times today. I mopped my floor with every product I could find at the supermarket labeled "for tough stains," and I still think I will have to paint my floor "tomato juice red." Our cat jumped up on the counter and found his paws glued there with jam...we removed him surgically.

Phase 7-The pessimist

Who was I kidding? None of my kids will touch this stuff anyway.

Phase 8-The feminist

This is yet another way to trap a woman in her kitchen for endless hours with only her own thoughts to drive her to insanity. Whoever invented mason jars was definitely a man.

Fortunately by the time I hit phase 9 (that's the one when jars start getting thrown at husbands) the harvest is over and I have all winter to enjoy the "fruits" of my labor. So where am I now? Somewhere between phase 3 and 4...I can keep this up at least through September.