kitchen hustle

september is always a big month in the kitchen. the tomato plants have their big finale, apples are ripening, the farmer's market is calling to me and tempting me to buy way too much of everything, and the csa keeps forcing more more MORE bell peppers and cabbage and cucumbers into my cramped fridge drawers. i spend such a huge chunk of time in the kitchen mid-august through the end of september making sauces, salsas, canning and freezing, all in the act of "putting up" food for the winter. i love putting up food for winter. it creates a real relationship between myself and the seasons. the tomatoes you grew in summer taste so much better in the winter simply because they are yours, and you remember the work to grow, water, pick, peel, boil, and save those tomatoes. when the stoc of preserved food starts to dwindle, you can feel just the smallest hint of how hard winter must have been in the days long past; the days of self reliance, the days way way waaaay prior to globalization. 

but the planned demolition of my kitchen starting on september 20 is putting me in a bit of a harvest-time panic. i am not sure what i will do without a range and running water mid-way through this critical time of the year. i mean, i KNOW what i will do: i will give away what i can't eat fresh, and i will have to buy canned goods from the store. but it feels weird giving away access to the ritual of food preservation.

so, in the mean time, we've been BUSY.

we are roasting tomatillos,

 and ladling a seeming endless volume of sauce into hot jars.


we've been whipping up pesto

,

boiling and peeling tomatoes,

and then, after making a dozen quarts of tomatoes, a quick run out to the garden means more tomatoes, more peppers, more work...

there are dill pickle chips getting tasty in the basement right now,

and frozen red bell peppers waiting for winter chili.

there are pears, there are apple pies, there are dill beans. there is just so much. so much to make, so much to prepare. i love it. and i hate it. but i love it, mostly. i just don't like doing it when i know what i really ought to be doing is packing up the kitchen shelves and getting ready to live off of styrofoam plates for "8-10 weeks." sigh.