(Alright, before getting into the rhube, time to come clean: I’m ’bout to have a bébé over here. Any day now. Hence the slowing down of the blogging, right down to a trickle. Renovations and some frantic nesting have left me very little time to consider the pantry with. And just in time for canning season! All this to say that this blog is easing its way into a bit of a maternity leave. We’ll see what happens over the summer. I hope to still can and blog, but the whole thing may be rather more sporadic… Anyway, happy summer canning, jamming, pickling and preserving to one and all!) And now back to your regular scheduled programming:

Rhubarb heralds summer’s sweet beginnings. Makes me think of  Slip ‘n’ Slide, Orange Crush, above-ground pools, hamburgers with buns as moist and sweet as cake. Its tangy, slightly fibrous mushiness makes it one of summer’s comfort foods.

I came across a recipe for rhubarb-ginger jam in my copy of The Complete Book of Preserving from 1976 and I’ve adapted it slightly here, cutting the sugar a little since the crystallized ginger adds a lot of sweetness.

Here goes:

Rhubarb-ginger jam

2.5 lbs rhubarb cut into 1-in. pieces

3 cups sugar

1/2 cup water

juice of 1/2 lemon

2 tbsp crystallized ginger, finely chopped

2-inch piece of ginger

Bring your rhubarb, water, lemon juice and sugar to a boil, stirring often. Take your nub of ginger and beat it up a little with a meat hammer or some other implement that will help release its juices and add it to your bubbling fruit mix along with the crystallized stuff.

Cook until your reach the desired jammy consistency (I went for about 30 minutes), remove ginger bit and process as usual in hot, clean jars (I boil them for 10 minutes).

Alright, so this has blossomed into a sometimes semi-monthly round-up. So be it. I like to think of this blog as a slow blog, you know, like slow food. I take my sweet time doing the mise-en-place, put a post on the burner and simmer it, bake ideas for a week or more at low temperatures. And I promised myself when I started blogging that I would never apologize for not blogging “enough.” What is it with blogger’s guilt? How many times have you read a riffs on the “Sorry I haven’t been posting, I’ve been so busy with work/my baby/getting drunk, I promise I’ll try harder…” missive? Bloggers: blog or don’t blog but never apologize. Isn’t this online nerding out just for fun anyway? Say it loud: “I’m slow and I’m proud!” Wait. That didn’t come out right.

And now, a few newsy jar tidbits:

* Spring quickie pickles

Here’s a snappy selection of quick pickling recipes from Carolyn Maynard-Parisi who contributes to the NY Times‘ The Local New Jersey-related blog. For first-time canners and instant-gratification types, Maynard-Parisi offers up three vinegar-soaked quickies: quick-pickled red onions (adapted from a recipe by Molly Wizenberg of Orangette) quick-pickled asparagus (adapted from Sunset magazine) and pickled ramps (adapted from One Spice, Two Spice by Floyd Cardoz).

* Amish chic

Their motto says it all: “At Lehman’s, being old-fashioned is always in fashion.” Sweet. Anyone near Kidron, Ohio today can scurry down to this giant Amish general store to catch the tail-end of their 55th anniversary celebrations. Seems they’ve got 32,00 sq. ft of space, including a HUGE selection of canning and preserving gear (much of it you can order on-line), plenty of home butchering supplies, a home dairy section stocking butter- and cheese-making gear and a pantry that stocks such tempting treats as Amish popcorn kits, hickory hams and plenty of jams and fruit butters.

* Jars of light

Another Orangette reference – purely coincidental: Kitch’n posted about these pretty pendant lamps made from Weck canning jars a few days ago. They were custom made for Ms. Wizenberg’s Seattle pizza joint and now you can order them on-line here. They’re a little steep at $185 a pop, but any repurposing jars is always fun (I like using them as glasses, vases, candle holders). Another recent Kitch’n post involving those fetching Wecks, for esthetically discerning pantry keepers: the lovely look of Weck jars marked up in white pen.

Just back from a month in South America. Yup, I made those last two marmalades before I left and posted about them from Buenos Aires. Pretty sneaky, huh?

While in Argentina and Uruguay, I picked up a serious dulce de leche habit. I had it twice, sometimes three times, a day. Smeared on toast in the morning. In the form of “panqueques de dulce de leche,” a dessert staple in most restaurants (crepes filled with warm dulce de leche). In alfajores (the national Argentine dulce de leche-stuffed cookie). Or in this impossibly rich square they make with a rich, buttery bottom layer, dulce de leche and lots of coconut on top.

In fact, pretty much the only gifts we brought back for friends and family involve dulce de leche. Behold the dulce treats:

To make your own dulce de leche you gotta reduce sweetened milk for hours and hours until you hit the spreadable caramel stage. Me thinks it’s one of those things that’s not worth the time and effort of making at home, like churning your own butter or pressing your own olives for oil (at least these things don’t seem feasible to an urban apartment dweller like moi).

A few more South American snapshots:

Steak from heaven at El Obrero in the futball-obsessed working class hood of La Boca in Buenos Aires.

Roadside stand selling hongo (mushrooms) and pickles along the highway between Montevideo and Punta del Este in Uruguay.

The menu at Casa Felix, a pescatarian closed-door resto in BA, where we had one of our favourite meals.

The chivito, Uuruguay’s insane national sandwich. These fine specimens incorporated thinly sliced steak, ham, cheese, egg, bacon, tomato, lettuce, olives, marinated mushrooms, pickled vegetables, hot peppers and some kind of very thick mayonnaisey sauce. Yes, please!

And, finally, a shot of a magical moment we had at a cafe called Oui Oui in the Palermo Hollywood neighborhood of Buenos Aires. That was the best alfajor EVER, crazy thick with dulce and the cookie bits were moist like cake. A pitcher of sweet, milky iced coffee sealed the deal.

Anyway, spring is afoot in Montreal now, it’s actually been a shockingly balmy one so canning season is just around the corner. Muy, muy exciting.

Hello, sunshine. Alas, it will be another few months, early May at the earliest, before we Quebecers get our hands on anything grown locally (that is, anything that hasn’t been sitting in cold storage for six months – like apples, carrots, onions and cabbage). And though I’m not a fan of those bloated, rose-coloured Mexican strawberries or the blueberries from Chile that taste like cardboard (it’s true: for most of the year, we are a sadly fruit-deprived nation), I do long for tasty citrus right about now, and the good stuff has been rolling into town from Florida, California and southern Europe for weeks now. So I snagged some Meyer lemons from Fruiterie Chez Nino and got to work on something I’ve had on my wish list for some time now: Meyer lemon and vanilla marmalade. Mais oui!

Meyers are a cross between a lemon and a mandarin, hence their orange-y complexion and sweeter taste. Now, here is my take on marmalade: take it easy. Keep it simple. Since I only use the thinnest zest and no white peel, there’s no need for overnight soaking and the formula couldn’t be easier: just mix equal parts fruit and sugar with a little water, cook until desired set is achieved, and can. Done. Or refrigerate if not canning (and eat up soon).

It helps to use a good peeler, like my Oxo peeler with ferociously sharp metal teeth:

It’s like it was born to peel perfect, thin ribbons of citrus zest for marmalade.

Easy Meyer lemon and vanilla marmalade

14-16 Meyer lemons, maybe more (enough to make 4 cups of juicy fruit)

4 cups sugar

1.5 cups water

2 vanilla beans

Scrub your lemons with a vegetable scrubber under cold water, peel the thinnest layer of zest possible (no white stuff), then cut zest into very thin strips, like angel hair pasta. You can use the peels of all your lemons if you like, or, if you prefer use less (perhaps from 3/4 of the lemons).

Put the strips of zest in the water as you carry on with the recipe, to prevent them drying out and to soften them a little. Now, using a sharp knife, cut away a slice of white pith from both ends, thereby creating two flat sides. Sit your lemon on one of these flat sides, steadying it on your work surface, then work your way around the fruit, cutting away all the white pith that remains.

Slice open your lemon, cut away the thick white center bit, then remove any seeds and chop coarsely, removing any chunky white bits. Do this with all your lemons. Continue scooping the juice and fruit bits into a bowl or measuring cup. You should have about four cups. (You can also cheat and do the chopping in a food processor after removing as much of the white stuff as possible.)

Mix fruit with sugar, water and peel, pour this melange into a pot and cook over medium-low heat at first to dissolve sugar. Now bring it to a low boil/simmer over medium-high heat and cook, stirring frequently until it darkens in colour and begins to set (put it on a cold spoon and if it gels in a few seconds, it’s ready). I cooked mine about 40 minutes.

And there you have it: a vanilla-flecked Meyer lemon delicacy. It’s a gentle, de-clawed marmalade, a fine entry point into the world of marms for those who think they don’t like them because they’re too bitter. There’s no pungent bite, just dulcet, lemony goodness with tender, wispy tendrils of tangy zest and a vanilla accent that makes it taste like cake. Even non-marmalade fans will rejoice!

OK, taste-test time. Fun. As previously mentioned, I brought some small French jams back from Paris in my very small bag. I’ve been meaning to start doing taste-tests on this lil’ bloggy woggy, so voila: the first one.

I firmly believe that jam is best appreciated on fresh baguette with a tiny smear of unsalted butter. So that’s exactly how this was done.

Our lovely contestants today -

Carla mango and passion fruit jam:

Smells lush, fruity, tropical. Top marks for full mango flavour, not too sweet, just sultry and equatorial, passion fruit brings the tang. However, the texture is lacking. It’s too thin and liquidy for my tastes. Refrigeration will help that, but still I think it could be thicker. Also: there was a hard disc of wax (paraffin?) covering the jam, which was tricky to get out of the jar – I thought this layer of wax was ixnayed by jammers years ago. Hmmmm.

Confiture Artisanale by L’Epicurien strawberry and mint jam:

This tastes like grandma made it. Smells like gorgeous, sunny, early summer, fleeting and full of possibility. I see seeds, I see little bits of shredded mint. A really nice homemade-tasting jam, and not too sweet, the mint is subtle, just a hint. Texture has that lovely uneven, homemade, slightly clumpy charm, with bits of stringy fruit. I like.

Christine Ferber white peach and Alsatian raspberry jam:

Alright, they don’t call Ferber the queen of jam for nothing. This is a textbook perfect jam. Not too much of a smell, but texture is perfect, set but not stiff, and even looks so photogenic spread on bread. Honestly, it’s a little too sweet for my tastes and the raspberry overpowers the peach flavour, but it’s still completely delicious, obviously made using the best-quality fruit and cooked with great care. Now I understand why this stuff retails for $15 at the chichi grocer up the street.

Vive les confitures Frenchies!