Preserving Party at Amy's! The place to be on a rainy Seattle Sunday.
Sunday, September 26, 2010 at 8:22AM I am so happy to be able to be back on my website, posting on my blog. I have had quite a week. Well, quite a month. But mostly, I have been side-tracked with stuff like moving and a garage sale. Craigslist ads and Goodwill donations.
As far as I'm concerned, it's never a good time to move, but right smack dab in the middle of my favorite time to do some canning? No thanks!
My car, loaded up with some of the things we'll need for our Preserving Party.
Today I am getting back on track, doing what I love to do. Making Dilly Green Beans & Blue Ribbon Dills, with a dozen other people who want to learn the wonders of pickle-making. We will spend a couple hours together, shoulder to shoulder, snipping flowering dill, peeling garlic and deciding how many hot peppers in a jar is too many. We will trim green beans to fit into pint-size jars and slice 1/8 " off the blossom end of the cucumbers. We'll mix brine, and measure mustard seeds, and assemble ingredients just so in our jars. In the end, we'll listen with great anticipation for the PING, telling us our lids have sealed after their boiling water bath.
In between we'll laugh with each other, and learn from each other. At some point we'll sample some other pickles I've made, because all that talk about pickles is sure to make us hungry, and because I want people to know that pickling isn't just about cucumbers & vinegar; that you can pickle other veggies and that fermentation is fun too.
Hopefully my students will leave feeling happy and with a sense of accomplishment as they walk out the door, carrying their still-warm jars of precious pickled cargo.
For me. it doesn't get much better than this.
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Brook Hurst Stephens
What a great time we had that day.
All the work stations were humming along.
Left to right, Kay M., Kay C. and Cynthia washing cukes.
The garlic peelers and dill snippers seem to be having fun too.
Left to right, Carol, Phyllis, and Emily, prepping herbs.
Our hostess got the hang of sealing jars in no time.
Amy, placing the sealing lid on one of her beautiful jars of Blue Ribbon Dills!
What a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon ~
Reader Comments (2)
This WAS a fun day and I can't wait to do another class. Pickles are delicious! I'm going to save the dilly beans for a relish tray on Thanksgiving.
I need to get busy on scheduling more classes. This "being out of town thing" is wreaking havoc on my canning & preserving. This is my last weekend I have to be gone and then I am full steam ahead on setting up more classes and more parties!
The photo of you, er, your hand (sealing the jar of pickles) turned out great. Hard to believe I only snapped a couple photos yet was able to capture that dramatic side view. The pepper and the dill look like art.
You really know how to pack a pickle jar Girl :)
(I so loved the way the red Lid Lifter looked in these photos that I bought a red canning funnel when I was in New Orleans. Lots of canning supplies in the South. I was in Heaven.)