How We Have Worked

This Labor Day, this end of summer day, I cast about for something productive to do and lit upon the mountain of CSA peppers.


Somehow, what with being away for a while, and trying to eat all the vegetables that don't keep so well, we'd ended up with a dozen perfect red Carmen peppers, along with assorted other small peppers (like that yellow one - a banana pepper, maybe). In a fit of great madness, I decided to roast and marinate and can them - yes, actual mason jars in boiling water bath.

The jury's out on whether it was worth it, because it was rather a lot of work for three pints of pickled peppers. But lordy, do I feel butch.


I used a book called Well-Preserved, by Eugenia Bone - she'd gotten a write up in the Times in the spring, and the book had wormed itself onto the list in my head. It's a small, idiosyncratic cookbook, a general demystification of the canning process with lots of tips. I might actually try making sauerkraut later in the fall. I don't think I'll can my own tuna, because, um, blech.

Labor for labor day. Somehow, it seemed apt.