Ketchup

Last weekend Kyle and I went to LA. It was pretty awesome and we had a great time. I’ll try to post pictures at some point. We go out to visit his Uncle Troy and now-Aunt Ellen. They’re very cool people – bohemian, geeky, fun and funny. Both are very intelligent and Troy is very easy to talk to. Ellen finds it easy to talk to anyone, so our personalities are very different. She’s an outspoken feminist who now lives too far away from a yoga studio so she has her yoga instructor come up to their house for personal training sessions. When we first went out there in 2007 and I met her for the first time she was very concerned because she felt I let myself be overshadowed by Kyle’s ambitions and hobbies. Apparently, if you’re a quiet woman, you’re a woman without dreams or ambitions of your own.

The first night we were there this time I tried to be bubbly and talkative and engaging and it wore me the fuck out. God, that’s so fucking draining! So I went back to my quiet self and though she was not as direct about her judgement of me this time, it still came through. As if I needed an intervention or something because people like her (women in particular) cannot imagine that someone (other women in particular) can be comfortable and content without being loud and expressing opinion after opinion after opinion.

I mention all of this because yes, it’s annoying and venting about it is nice, but also because my interactions with her help me more solidly narrow down what I want to do with my energy. Her view of feminism is to be seen as strong and opinionated and in charge. (Though, she is still the one that keeps house in their home.) In my world view, feminism means having the opportunity to make choices and do what you want. I happen to want to do things with my time and energy which are very 1950s housewife, minus the valium. I want to knit and make food from scratch and make strawberry jam and have a clean, presentable house so we can have guests over for tea. On second thought, maybe that’s more 1850s housewife, minus the dysentery.

Before we left for LA, I made a purchase on Amazon.com because my phone case was almost completely broken and I needed a new charging cord as well. I figured we’d order some good old fashioned books as well and spent hours looking for a novel to buy. I couldn’t find one, but eventually happened on Canning for a New Generation and was instantly in love and finished the transaction then and there. I had a chance to review the book a little bit before we left, but it wasn’t until last week when I was home in bed for two days with the flu, that I really started thinking about all of the amazing things I could make/can/jar/discover.

The book is separated by season, which is very helpful because there’s not much point in canning things that aren’t in season. I love plain kosher dill pickles, but there are at least a dozen other pickle recipes in this book that I would love to try, including pickled watermelon rinds. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up closer to the city than a farm, but there are things I would never have thought to preserve, again like pickled watermelon rind. Also, garlic. She’s got a recipe for ketchup, which I am dying to try out. At the grocery store, my ketchup choice is driven more by price than taste. In my kitchen, I picture little batches of different ketchup flavors all spread out and ready for everyone to try. And if that means making five different recipes of ketchup for each of our tastes, that’s fine by me. I dream of cupboards and shelves filled with colorful jars of food, all handmade or prepared and all delicious. I imagine that after a year or so of canning and preserving, I will look back and realize that breaking out of the store-bought foods rut is one of the best things I could have done for my sanity and our health.

I enjoy making food and preparing food so why should I pay a company extra money to take that privilege away from me just for convenience foods made with subpar ingredients and shipped thousands of miles to get to my grocery store shelf. It doesn’t make any sense to me anymore. Sure, there are things that probably aren’t worth making at home (macaroni shells, puff pastry sheets, etc) but I really want to make so much more of our foods. I made strawberry jam once. It came out more like strawberry syrup, but it was one of the more rewarding things I’ve done in the kitchen. The apple butter I made in the crock pot a few months ago – divine!

I’ve got a jar sitting on the counter now which will be almond extract in about 6 weeks. I’m thrilled and already starting to think of all the delicious almond-y things I could make. (Vanilla extract will be next, as soon as I order some vanilla beans online.) I’m planning on getting more jars tonight so I can make yogurt. Homemade yogurt! I LOVE yogurt, but it’s so expensive. With homemade yogurt, I’ll end up with two quarts for just under $3. And my next two quarts of homemade yogurt will be even cheaper. And I get to say, “I made my own yogurt.”

I can’t wait to fill my pantry with all kinds of healthful, wholesome goodness.