D-U-L-N, Done!

At approximately 1:30 p.m. today, I took the final three jars of marinara out of the waterbath and turned off the stove. After a marathon cooking session which started at 2 p.m. yesterday, I had 15 pints of beets, six pints of pickles and nine quarts of marinara to show for my efforts. I also have an entire bowl filled with dried red peppers which, when ground, will make an excellent paprika. However, that job was a little too much for the mortar and pestle, so I also have an Amazon Prime delivery on Monday of a new coffee and spice grinder where the reviews specifically mention grinding up dried peppers. (Because of the oils in the peppers, it’s important that the grinder can handle them.)

So, I’m done – again, as my dad would have said, D-U-L-N, done! That was a Gary-ism. My dad had a ton of them. D-U-L-N, done is one that made it into my vernacular and now into my husband’s as well. There were others: “Rise and shine! Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed” was another. “Up with the chickens” was a third. We never had chickens, so I’m not sure where Dad picked that one up. But that was my dad. Sometimes equal part successful businessman and local yocal who was known to skip a shower on a weekend and let his hair go absolutely wild. He was funny and a great time to be around but also gave some pretty good advice. There was some bad advice in there as well, but that was also part of Dad’s charm. Just good, ole Gary S. and his many sayings.

But, as most things I write about, growing up with my parents and doing things the way they used to do them has become ingrained in me. Perhaps, I was just a little too impressionable? Regardless, in a weekend where I fixated on home canning, I am really starting to feel the fruits of my labor. I’ve got six packets of frozen green beans, five bags of blackberries, three bags of cherries, four bins of blueberries and now the waterbath items. These nine new jars of sauce, added to the five I have left from the last canning session means I have 14 quarts of sauce. That should easily get us through the winter, even if I don’t make sauce from any of the tomatoes currently ripening in the garden. I still have corn on the cob to cook, slice off the cob and freeze but I’ll do that tomorrow. I also have a number of jalapeños and banana peppers which need to be chopped and frozen. But finally, I feel like the little adds I’ve made to the freezer and the canning pantry are starting to add up. And all winter long? We can enjoy the fruits of summer which came from our own back yard or the farms around us.

This is part of why I do so much canning. Straight up, it’s so much easier to just go to the grocery and pick up a jar of sauce or pickles. Even if you wanted to make them yourself, you can easily go to the grocery, grab some tomatoes, onions, garlic, oregano and basil and make your own sauce. One does not really have to go through all of the work of actually growing everything first or sourcing local ingredients. But, I love the process as much as I love the outcome – which I think tastes infinitely better than anything store-bought and better yet with locally harvested, fresh ingredients.

But the actual doing? It’s kind of its own reward. I’ve heard people say that about wood-burning fireplaces. That instead of the gas-burning fireplaces which come with a remote control, people prefer a wood fireplace because they can interact with it. There are many times I would love the convenience of a remote-controlled fire, I’ll be honest. But the joy of building your own fire? I think it’s somewhat true. While it’s a pain in the neck to get firewood, chop it, stack it, haul it inside, stack it again and continuously feed the fire, there’s also something cathartic about it. Every time we’re splitting and stacking wood (and yes, I’m a stacker, not a splitter), it feels good. It’s a little exercise, yes, but it’s also a little bit of providing for yourself that feels so good. And when you have to carefully build a fire using paper, kindling and small logs to get it started, you feel a stupid sense of pride when it takes off. Yes, pointing and clicking the remote would be way easier and so much more convenient, but it wouldn’t be something I created or contributed to.

So it is with canning. This was not an easy weekend. I’ve literally been cooking in the kitchen for at least 12 hours over the last 24. I’ve done more dishes than I care to think about and I’ve cleaned up the kitchen about 10 times between each step of about as many processes to get all of this made.

But my little pantry is filling up. I’ll share some of the fruits of my labor with my sisters and my in-laws. And I provided for myself and my little family. It’s silly and it’s unnecessary when there is a perfectly good grocery down the street. But it feels good. And I love it.