<A random selection of recent canning-related news and recipes>

* Fleeting nature of food trends: is a pickle backlash around the corner?

This week the New York Observer ran an article titled “The Pickle Posse”. In it the Pickle Freak (a.k.a. blogger Katie Tackett) declares that “pickles are the new cupcakes,” food writer and canner Eugenia Bone calls pickling “a political act,” and  a 26-year-old Williamsburg chick is revealed to have a pickle tattoo overlaid  with the words “Dill With It.” Why do I feel like the public will be turning against pickles any day now?

Being firmly in the pro-pickle camp, I’m certainly not gunning for it, but somehow can’t help feeling a backlash may be imminent, as with so many fervently embraced food trends that all too quickly lose favour and draw the hatred of food culture pundits and bloggers across the land (small plates come to mind, and cupcakes).

Because so many of these pickle entrepreneurs seem to be tattooed Brooklyn hipsters and hipster bashing has become such a trend in itself, how long before the pickle bashing starts? But that’s probably just paranoia talking. Until the vultures descend: long live pickles! (PS: Here’s my post about  my own favourite pickle recipe so far, with the sourness and crunch I like best.)

* Peas under pressure

I haven’t made the leap to pressure-canning yet, but when I do, soups will be my first order of biz-ness. Like this comforting split pea number by Doris and Jilly.

* Ménage  à trois oignons confits

This ran about a month ago on the kitchn: a trio of enticing onion jams, one flavoured with balsamic, one with rosemary and one with red wine. I’ve been meaning to get experimental with onion jams, or oignons confits as we say in Quebec, but my peepers are so very sensitive, I shall first have to invest in some swimming goggles to avoid the dreaded ocular sting that inevitably results from chopping several pounds of onions.