The End [of Summer] is Near!

yellow tomatoes and basil

more tomatoes, and jalapenos to stuff

Apparently, Ray and I are prepping for the End Times.

This thought occurs to me as I look over some of the un-done chores on today’s to-do list (lesson-planning and grading are a given on EVERY list, so I never need to write them down):

(1) find space for another 14 quarts of canned tomatoes in the pantry;

butterflies are stocking up, too

(2) inventory and rearrange items in two freezers (one small chest freezer is full to the brim with parrot food and gooseberries), to see if we need a third small freezer for the 50 lbs. of local grass-fed beef we’re picking up this weekend;

(3) roast a bucket of Roma tomatoes and blend them into sauce for the freezer (see #2); and

(4) make this soup before the cauliflower goes bad: http://iowagirleats.com/2012/09/25/bacon-cheddar-cauliflower-chowder-a-low-carb-alternative-to-baked-potato-soup/

Just in time for my first enormous pile of papers to grade, our garden is easing up. The cuke vines are dying back, and the acorn squash is hardening. There are still plenty of tomatoes out there, and today’s high 80’s should help them ripen. I’ve already put up enough pesto and basil cubes (http://www.fatandhappyblog.com/2011/10/basil-cubes-how-to-freeze-fresh-basil.html) to supply the Upper Midwest for the winter, but it keeps coming, so I’ll have to dry some this weekend. I hope to get one more big meal of cream cheese and venison stuffed jalapenos before the peppers are done. And the guy with the amazing grass-fed lamb will be at the farmer’s market tomorrow—what’s a crazy [food] prepper girl to do?

we'll soon be knee-deep in these

roasted veggies to blend into sauce

Except for a brief warm up today, the weather here at the Row has been coolish and damp, in the 60’s. Soybean fields are yellowing, the apples are ripe, and our honey locust tree is a gorgeous disaster of a bajillion pods. These subtle signals trigger obsessive gathering and “putting by” here on the SoDakian tundra, because there’s only one thing prairie folk truly trust, and that’s a full larder. By the time we get our first whiff of autumn—a mixture of late-lingering dew, turned earth from a farmer’s early harvest, smoke from someone’s first wood-stove fire, and a delicious hint of decay—we’re already tacking plastic on the windows. We’re stockpiling canned tomatoes and Colorado peaches, Trader Joe’s mixed nuts, Café Altura Italian Roast beans, crossword puzzles, longjohns, and good toilet paper. We’re hanging the down jackets on the line to air.

It’s survival, plain & simple. These signs of brief, beautiful autumn remind us that we’ve been living in the Happy Bubble since last May. But it can’t last. Winter is just out of sight, waiting, with his pointy little icicle.

pickled whatever's-still-growing

we could live on peaches

Ray & I aren’t prepping to the point where we’re putting up rooftop sniper perches or razor wire, but I WILL rearrange the venison and coffee beans in the freezer today. And we’ll need a few more wool hats and fingerless gloves in the 30-gallon Rubbermaid tub o’ knitted outerwear.  And maybe I’ll haul some wood up to the back porch. But right now, while the low-carb venison chili is simmering in the crockpot, I’ll take a nap. Because if the End Times are coming, I need to rest up.

Reasons for My Compulsive Stockpiling of Food

1. I live in South Dakota. It snows sometimes in June. Once you settle here, you take on Norwegian genes by osmosis, regardless of your actual ancestry. These genes cause you to squirrel away food for the long winter, so you’re not forced to make the difficult mid-February lutefisk-or-death decision.

2. A psychic once told me that in a past life in 200 BCE China, I was a young man who gave away all I had to the poor, until I literally starved to death. Learn from your mistakes, I say, or you’re destined to repeat them.

3. I make & freeze massive quantities of pesto because basil is said to cause the spontaneous generation of scorpions under pots in which it grows, then in the brain when one unwittingly smells the plants. It’s also said to ensure a merry heart, or to be a cure for melancholy. If even one of these is true, it would be SO cool.

4. I’m not a dainty waif. I’m voluptuous, ample, Rubenesque. It takes a whole lotta calories to maintain these bumps & bulges.

5. I grew up in a household headed by my mom and grandma, two powerful single women, where hospitality, and especially food, was the ultimate expression of love & generosity. My mom will still drag in and force-feed anyone who walks within 100 yards of her house.

6. Where but in my kitchen could I, completely unlicensed, experiment with color, chemistry, light, heat, texture, and taste, then test on human subjects without having them sign insurance waivers, then save my experiments for years on a dark shelf or in the back of my freezer, then pull them out and play with them some more?

7. If I’m picking, sorting, washing, cooking, freezing, or canning, it means I’m NOT doing something else. Like getting ready for class tomorrow. Or grading papers. Or paying bills. Or folding laundry. Or dusting. Or grading papers. Or grading papers. Or grading papers.

8. Pearl Bailey said, “My kitchen is a mythical place. A kind of temple for me.” Ditto. Consider the votive candles in a Catholic church, lit by folks who ask for blessing or favor. I have jars of tomatoes, pickles, salsa, pesto, and jam instead, and each jar, backlit by light through a kitchen window, is my luminous little petition for sustenance.

Fruit Jam as Metaphor for a Sweet, Troubled Life

One night last week, Ray and I canned 17 jars of Jalapeach Jam. That’s peach and jalapeno combined. It’s the perfect dichotomy of pleasure & pain, with its pairings of diced freestone peaches & minced jalapenos, sugar & vinegar, butter & lemon juice. The jam is both irresistible and torture. Will yourself through that first instant of tongue-searing pepperiness, and you’re almost instantly rewarded with the sweetest, lingering peachiness, until you’re no longer meek, trembling, afraid.

This is not unlike raising children. The laborious (sorry) childbirth to foggy, forgetful joy metaphor is clear. But it’s also like surviving child/teenhood. You’ve heard the comparisons between teens and The Exorcist, and trust me, they’re not far off. I am perpetually baffled by parents who manage to slide blissfully through with obedient, soft-spoken children and without numerous surprise phone calls from (a) the angry/offended parents of another child/teen; (b) the principal, on duty at the junior-senior prom; (c) the chaperone of a school trip; or, my favorite, (d) the police.

The reprimands, accidentally drowned hamsters, groundings, bailouts, middle-of-the-night trackdowns, public humiliation, court dates, late-night weeping, worry, screaming matches—they’re the jalapenos. And as we all know, humans can’t live for long on jalapenos alone. The compassionate, intelligent, hilarious (all in a fairly warped way), independently-minded human beings my kids are becoming as adults—that’s the peaches. But even peaches, splendid as they are, can lead to diabetic coma if that’s all you get. You need both.

Jalapeach Jam also makes a good metaphor for other kinds of relationships. It works for conversation, friendships, dating, living together, sex: if the jars don’t seal, you’d better take what you can, fast. And although sweetness is so good, every now & then, you just need to go up in flames.

So I’ll take my peaches with a little jalapeno, thank you, on a bagel spread with cream cheese—I’ve learned to appreciate that pleasantly painful balance.