Preserving the Harvest

A dear friend has asked for recipes for preserving. I am happy to oblige by sharing my favorite books. (These are linked to Amazon so you can get a good feel for them, but I encourage you to support your local library/independent bookseller/used bookstore.)

My "bible" (somewhat literally, since the growing and preparing of food is definitely a spiritual practice for me) is Preserving Summer's Bounty by Rodale Press, the same folks that pioneered organic gardening before "organic" was commodified by corporations and codified by the USDA. This book has everything you need to know on canning, freezing, drying, and juicing pretty much every variety of fruit or vegetable, and it has a section on herbs as well.

There's another cool book published by Chelsea Green called Keeping Food Fresh. Actually, it has a different title on the website, but I'm pretty sure it's an updated version of the same book I have. This book has techniques for preserving foods without freezing or canning, by using salt, oil, lactic fermentation, and other methods. I haven't made as much from this one, but the recipes I have used are great, leading to some great pickled veggies for summer potato salad! Many of them are from traditional European methods.

Another favorite, which I found in a used bookstore, is Putting It Up with Honey. I prefer to use local honey whenever possible, rather than sugar which is mostly imported from faraway locations.

And I gotta tell you, I love Mary Jane's farm...her Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook, for the Farmgirl in All of Us (don'tcha love that title?) is just that...chapters on preserving, cooking, needlework, and more. It's chock full of ideas!

Now go to your garden/farmers market/u-pick place closest to you, and get busy!

Mother-daughter yoga

DD and I have been taking yoga classes together at this lovely place for the past several weeks. I've practiced yoga off and on for ten years; she just started, first at home with my yoga practice tapes.

While our classes have been good, last night's was OUTSTANDING! It was a much smaller class with a different teacher, and I knew it was going to be good when he started by first poking the small of my back, then hers, to see how alike or different they were! (Different at the beginning, alike by the end, as she learned about proper alignment.)

The teacher was so attentive and provided just the right amount of challenge. By the end of class, my whole body felt like it had been stretched, straightened, and strengthened. WOW! We walked in feeling tired and like we probably wouldn't have come if we weren't doing it together. We walked out feeling energized and inspired!

I'm so glad we can share this experience. Recently T and I discussed the fact that, because our spiritual practice is meditative in nature, it's not exactly easy to pass along to the kids. I like yoga because it is physically, intellectually, and spiritually challenging.

For me, spiritual practice is about mindfulness, or presence, the ability to be fully present with your body, heart, and mind. Yoga is great because the practice, if done with attention, REQUIRES such mindfulness.

Of course, Toni Packer and many other spiritual teachers say that such presence is always accessible.

She says: Awareness, enlightenment, wholeness--whatever words one may pick to label what cannot be caught in words--is not the effect of a cause. Activity does not destroy it and sitting does not create it. It isn't a product of anything--no technique, posture, activity, or nonactivity can create it. It is there, uncreated, freely functioning in wisdom and love, when self-centered conditioning is clearly revealed in all its grossness and subtleness and defused in the light of understanding.

For those of us who need a little more revealing of our self-centered conditioning, though, yoga can be a great path, and I find that the more I practice mindfulness, through yoga, sitting, and regular life whenever possible, the easier it is to get to that state of awareness.

Growing up in rural America

This isn't directly related to my 45th year challenge, but I recently learned that a woman I graduated high school with has written a memoir. So, of course, I read it as soon as I could get my hands on it!

Publisher's Weekly describes Driving with Dead People, by Monica Holloway, as follows, "Her memoir sings with the power of a disenfranchised woman finally finding her own voice, and her brutal memoir is hard to forget."

I have to say that her ability at capturing our hometown's sense of place and culture is uncanny. Although Monica and I didn't socialize outside of high school, we were in many classes together. And, of course, I would never have guessed what she was dealing with outside of school. Nor, I'm sure, would she have guessed anything about my personal life.

The book reminded me of how overwhelming being a teenager can feel, and also of how we all find ways to deal. Monica and I were similar in that we both coped by achieving. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but as I've lived my 44 years, I have realized that tying one's identity to achievement is a tenuous proposition.

The spiritual teachers to whom I relate, such as Pema Chodron and Toni Packer, would remind me that tying one's identity to ANYTHING is problematic!

So, perhaps this is about my 45th year challenge...working with feelings of image and identity are a big part of meditative work, and as I've begun to think about my solo retreat, I've realized that it may be a tiny bit harder than I've imagined. Nearly 2 whole days with no externally-imposed schedule, no one to be responsible for or to, no one to ground me in some sense of role or identity? Yes, it might be a little more challenging than I initially thought.

Oh, by the way, if you read the book, no, I'm not in it, but my best friend is mentioned. Ask me and I'll tell you who.