2 hours ago, SLB said:
On the home front -- I admit, my resistance to air conditioning may fail in the face of late-summer canning. I know that my grandmas canned without air conditioning, ruthlessly. My cousins still talk about the wonders to be stolen out of the pantry in my paternal grandma's house. But it seems like some serious suffering.
Anyway. Squee!
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Squee, indeed! It will become addicting.
I went in search of figs and tomatoes today. Scored figs. Did not score canning tomtatoes. That is not my last option. But tomorrow will be taken up with making fig jam and caponata, which I believe I can can, and I have enough tomatoes to do that.
Once I score the tomatoes, I need to can some plain tomatoes (peeled, cored, quartered, cooked) for soups and stews and all such, and some tomato relish (a sort of sweet, not-hot salsa that I grew up on; I do not believe one can eat field peas without it, and my stash is getting seriously low). A couple of 35-pound boxes should take care of me quite nicely. (We eat a LOT of tomatoes over the winter.)
I can tell you how we dealt with the no a/c issue when I was a kid. We would throw the No. 2 washtub in the back of the pickup, go to town to the icehouse, and get a 50-pound block of ice. Mama and I would carry it inside, put down newspapers, and set it in the kitchen floor. Set the box fan on a kitchen chair, behind it. Voila -- instant a/c. Saved us many a day when we were canning or freezing veggies and fruit.
Me, I'm a wuss in my advancing years. I turn the central AC down REAL low, and still use fans.
Then she would threaten, laughingly, to beat me for sitting on the rim of the tub and blocking the cold air.
