Forty-Two Pecks Of Pickles

Late Thursday morning I got a call from Lisa E. that she had procured two cases of pickling cucumbers and could I come over right away and start canning them up? I had been sitting at my computer kind of staring at it in an abstract way for about a half an hour because I was still getting over the whole stress of the twenty minute bloody nose of Max's. So I wasn't quite ready to jet. I had to gather myself up from the ether where my head was hanging out and eat food and think about how I was going to survive the ride on Highway 240. It was important to take advantage of this opportunity though because this year pickling cucumbers have not been available for picking at my favorite farm (due to crop failure) and it's nearly the end of the road for them everywhere.

You have to understand that Lisa and I both have friends and family absolutely boiling with anticipation for more of the kind of pickles we made last year because they were better than most pickles any of us have ever had. Well, that's what my sister, a pickle connoisseur, thought about them. Then my friend Sid, who I haven't heard a peep from since last April and who I miss dearly, said the same thing. She's another pickle connoisseur. So people want more. Obviously I cannot disappoint anyone.

The scooter ride to Lisa's house would be very pleasant if it weren't for all the cars I have to share the road with. There is a fifty five mile an hour speed limit on highway 240, a small two lane back road to Dundee from McMinnville. My scooter can keep up that speed limit without problems and I manage to hold that speed, sometimes a little bit faster, and yet there is not a car out there that doesn't feel it has to pass me. It makes me nuts. If everyone is going to insist on passing me (something that makes me nervous whether it's legal or not) then I may as well just go forty miles per hour and have myself a pleasant pastoral drive.

I have come to realize that people feel one of two things when they share the road with a shiny Vespa: 1) they are scared that they might run into me and so out of deep concern for my personal safety they must pass my flimsy excuse for a vehicle, or 2) it bugs the crap out of them that my waspy little scooter can go fast enough to keep up with traffic and they must show me that they are bigger and faster and pass me and then go fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit to stay ahead of me. I don't find this relaxing at all.

I may as well say here that I am constantly annoyed with people on the road anyway because I don't understand every one's desperate need to go as fast as the cops will let them get away with. It's like a rule with people that they must always go at least fifteen miles faster than the posted limit. Stop rushing around people. A lot of times people will pass me on highway 99 and I'll continually catch up with them at red lights. They jet ahead (oh how attractive that makes them, really sexy, you know?) and show me what they're made of and then I casually end up at the same light as them. Me, who tries to stick to the posted speed limit.

Speed is not sexy to me. This is so far off topic I'm not sure how to get back to the pecks of pickles in question. I guess the only way is to just dive in.

The day was just a jangle of noise and action to me. I had been contemplating getting into bed because I felt a cold coming on and what sounded good was to just stop working. But you can't ignore a pickle emergency so I gathered myself up and it only took me an hour to get out of the house. Like lightning-that's me. I finally arrived at Lisa's house at around twelve forty am. I didn't leave until eight pm. We put up forty two quarts of pickles. I am nervous of the results. Philip says I'm obsessing but the pickles remind me a little bit of shriveled uncircumcised penises. We couldn't get our hands on the freshest cucumbers so we took what we could get and they were a little old. They tell you in all the canning manuals not to use pickles that are old because they will be inferior. They don't tell you they will look like shriveled man parts, though, I guess that's what I'm here for.

A number of you will be thrilled to know that in addition to the dills, we also made a batch of bread and butter pickles. Just to see. Lisa has tried them before and said that even though she doesn't like sweet pickles, she remembers bread and butter pickles being quite savory and good. We cut the sugar in half though. Was that a big mistake?

I feel relieved to have put up the dills. They were so good last year. Even if they aren't quite as good this year because of not being canned the same day they were picked, I feel that we'll all enjoy them.

Smith's Blueberry Flats

Blueberry season is here in earnest and I missed it last year so this year I am not letting it slip past me. I took a ride on highway 240 yesterday morning where all cars are going 70 miles per hour (note to traffic cops: you may want to show up every once in a while.) on a two lane highway whose highest legal speed is 55 miles per hour. It's a beautiful road and even though I was fully able to keep up with the speeding traffic, the cars kept insisting on passing me.

It made me angry. What the hell is everyone is such a goddamn hurry for? And why do they feel they need to be ahead of me just because I'm on a scooter? It actually brought out the testosterone in me and made me want to show them what a bad-ass my little scooter is. But this is the kind of behavior on roads that makes road-kill out of people. So the next time I'm on that pretty road I'm going to go the speed limit and let everyone pass me dangerously. (There's no shoulder to pull over on to let people pass).

People are annoying.

There were some people picking blueberries when I arrived. One couple was just finishing up picking forty pounds of them to freeze. There was one other person picking who engaged in some awed conversation with the couple and their forty pounds.

Man "Wow, that's a lot of blueberries."
couple "Yep. Forty pounds."
Man "What are you going to do with them?"
Couple "Mostly we freeze them."
Man "Cool. So how do you do that?"
Couple "Freeze 'em on cookie sheets in the freezer and then bag 'em."
Man "But you wash them first, right?"
Couple "Nope. The water will make them all stick together."

Thoughtful pause.

Man "So you wash them when you're ready to use them?"
Couple "Nope."
Man "So you never wash them?"

After the people left I was alone out there with the crickets and the hot sun for about an hour and a half. I can't say my thoughts were restful or pleasant, but still, there's something delicious about time spent industriously by one's self in the middle of nowhere.

Hell, it wasn't the middle of nowhere, it was the middle of the Blueberry Flats! I picked twenty pounds.

That's a lot of blueberries. My kitchen kind of smells smurfy now.

I always eat a lot less jam than I think I will. When Max was under two and still eating peanut butter and jam sandwiches we went through at least a jar of jam a week. I was eating a lot more jam toast back then too. I always thought that it would be great to make all the jam I could possibly use in a year which I calculated at around 52 jars. I wanted to never buy jam again. Unfortunately I haven't bothered to reassess that goal since neither Max nor I are eating much jam these days. So I still have lots of blackberry jam left from last year.

I certainly want some blueberry jam because I've never made any, but I finally realized that I need to make less jam. I'm more likely to use a sauce that I can put over yogurt. In spite of this new goal, I managed to make nine half pints of blueberry lime jam (very good!), and six and a half pints of plain blueberry jam which was supposed to be sauce because I didn't cook it to the jelling point, yet somehow, it is thick enough to be called jam.

I also prepared a batch of blueberry lime jam to make Chelsea's way: you cook your jam only for ten minutes then let it sit over night, or over many nights in the fridge, until you have enough energy to heat it up again and process it. Not boiling it to death before processing really helps to preserve a fresher flavor. Letting it sit for a day helps to develop the pectin or something, because this process tends to help the jam be a little thicker.

So I'm going to end up with over twenty jars of blueberry jam. Shit.

That was just using about twelve pounds of blueberries. So with the rest of them I'm really going to make sauce. Which means being careful not to boil for more than a couple of minutes. Sauce is great for pancakes, ice cream, yogurt, or to pour over something exotic like cheese cake.

I'd love to freeze a bunch of them but I still don't have an extra fridge or freezer. So no freezer space. Which is too bad because blueberries freeze very well and are great for using in smoothies or for tossing frozen into muffins or coffee cake batter.

Anyone else taking advantage of blueberry season? Tell me how!!