Elements For A Healthier Life Magazine Issue 05 | September 2016 | Page 44

Just before it’s up to temperature, I fill the jars one by one from the kettle, then top them off with a teaspoon of canning salt and a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice, then add the seals and rings, and pop them back into the canner rack.

After 45 minutes in the boiling water bath out come the lovely jars of seasoned tomatoes that, over the winter, will be turned into spaghetti sauce that will bring back the flavor of summer.

Canning, for me, began as a healing practice. My parents divorced when I was eight years old, and my mother, sister and Imoved away from the farm where I'd lived as a small child.

Daddy remarried and I began

spending most of my summers on

the farm with him and my stepmother.

My stepmother did everything from

scratch - cooking, baking, clothes-

making. They had a huge garden every

summer and grew everything

imaginable. Canning began

in earnest in July. There

were sterilized jars

everywhere, and

something was

always in the

water-bath or

the pressure

canner.

I helped

chop and

dice and

slice in

the

farmhouse

kitchen,

while the

summer

breeze blew

in through

the porch

windows and

country music

played on the

kitchen radio. I

proudly carried the

cooled, sealed jars

upstairs to store in the

cupboards Daddy built

under the eaves.

In the winter, when I'd spend

the weekend, my stepmom would send me upstairs to bring jars of goodies down to add to our Sunday dinner, bringing a bit of summer pleasure back. We'd sit down after church to a farmhouse-style gourmet meal while the wood stove burned merrily, and when the meal was done, Daddy would light his ever-present pipe and sit quietly listening to us chatter while we did dishes.

Canning, for me, brings with it nostalgia for those much simpler days. And it brings with it the feeling of warmth and safety - both the lazy summer kitchen days and the lazier winter weekend days.

And when I look at the jars lined up on my kitchen counter, and stacked up in the pantry, I feel the safety and security that nostalgia

invokes. It's a little

piece of the past I

can recreate every

time I gather a

harvest from the

garden.

44 | ElementsForAHealthierLife.com | September 2016