I’m not sure I have any talent for this jarring and canning biz, but I’m learning a lot at an ambitious pace. This weekend, I had the good fortune to have two days off work in a row, so I could plan my projects in small enough steps that I might actually take them. So: on Friday, I cleaned two healthy bunches of beets, steamed the greens and roasted the beets. On Sunday, it was simple to peel and slice the refrigerated beets. Infusing the vinegar solution takes about twenty minutes, heating the beets takes about ten and processing time is 30 minutes. In between, I was able to pursue my secret life of crime, so I felt content, looking at the beautiful jars filled with magenta beets and pickling liquid. Meanwhile, I kept staring at a pint-ish of raspberries in the fridge, going, “What the fuck am I going to do with those?” Yes, I felt smart.

Pete said something geniouser: buy some strawberries. I didn’t love the strawberries I was seeing but I was anxious to get those berries out of my damn fridge before they melted into disaster and reproach. I hadn’t found a recipe, but with Pete’s and Minstrel Boy’s help, I’d worked out the principles of constructing one. Next thing I knew, the tiny pint-ish of raspberries and the pint of strawberries became four 4 oz. jars of bright red goo. If the jars don’t pop and turn blue, I might really have learned something worth knowing.

The woman who gets us Jersey peaches informs us that only blueberries and cranberries are farmed in any real quantity in our state. Farmers grow raspberries and blackberries for themselves because it’s really difficult to protect the fruit from birds. I didn’t bother to argue about this. Farmers grow entire fruit orchards under sheer fabric and I don’t know why anyone would think that’s not common knowledge. But: she says she can’t get berries and I will take her at her word. Berry season is over in a snap, so hopefully by next summer I can find a farmer who knows how to put up a tent.

Steaming beet greens. They are good and good for you. You freaking heard me!

In an interesting turn of events, the F key on my laptop barely works. I suppose it’s from friction but it’s a ucking drag.

Pink food makes me feel squinty.

That’s strawberry-rhubarb pie filling. Working up your own recipes for jarring is supposed to be very bad juju, fraught with perilous peril, unless you’ve been jarring since before you could tie your own apron strings. Thing is: sometimes you can go from book to book to book and find recipes filled with crap you’re not interested in eating; such was the case with rhubarb pie filling. I was not at all interested in including thickeners other than sugars, since I couldn’t find anyone making a case that the additional ingredients affected the pH and I would prefer my jarred pie fillings not congeal in the jar. Dude: it’s hard to get gelatin out of a quart jar and I develop needless hostility for delicious fruit. No, I want to open a jar of fruit like peaches, toss that into a pie crust, open a jar of pie filling and pour that on top without a fight or unnerving SLOOSHing sounds. Then I want to roll out a top crust, crimp that bad boy and bake it until it sings to me because, dagnabbit, in January, pink pie might save your life. Back to my point: I found recipes for rhubarb preserves and strawberry preserves, both of which included only fruit and sugar, that’s it. So I macerated the strawberries, macerated the rhubarb, cooked them a little, put a tablespoon of lemon juice in each jar, and poured in gently simmered fruit. The jars processed for half an hour, which seemed sensible. The flip side of working up a recipe is that I have to be prepared to accept it if I’ve fucked up. So okay: if I open a jar and the pink pie filling’s turned a startling fuzzy blue I have no one to blame but myself. If it’s tasty, though, I shall be impossible to live with.