Pantry Organization Day

I spent yesterday morning in the basement, moving and organizing all our canned food stocks. The older stuff needs to come to the front of the shelves, and I pull anything past its expiration date. I’ll keep my home-canned food for two years—three if I only have one or two of jars left of something—but beyond that, even if it is safe to eat, the flavor and color degrade.

[I don’t worry too much about botulism poisoning. I trust my sterile technique/canning abilities, and botulism toxin is heat labile, so I always make sure to boil whatever comes out of jars for at least five minutes. And for all that I freelance when cooking and rarely follow recipes, I adhere to canning recipes down to the letter.]

I made enough tomato sauce last year that we still have plenty for this year. And of course, we have a bumper crop of tomatoes coming on. I will make salsa, instead, and probably dehydrate the paste tomatoes. Our friend Anna, who has a plant-based catering business, sometimes buys produce from me. She may take some tomatoes. She’s very flexible and plans her menus around what she can get locally. We’ve chatted a bit about next year’s production. I’ll put in more than I usually plant so I can keep her supplied. I am familiar with her menu items and know what kinds of things she typically uses.

I have lots of stock—beef, ham, and chicken—on hand. The one thing I need more of is beans, like red beans and black beans. I’ll plan to do a couple of batches of each this month.

One of the local grocery stores usually has a case sale in September, and I use that opportunity to stock up on brown sugar and canned goods I don’t can myself (the husband is fond of pineapple).

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Yesterday afternoon, I tied myself to the coverstitch machine and I hemmed the half-dozen T-shirts I made last week. I also traced the pattern for the Kensington skirt (it’s only two pieces!):

I am a devoted member of #TeamTrace. It takes a few extra minutes, but the advantages are that I don’t have to cut up the original tissue pattern, I can grade between sizes if necessary, and my traced patterns are a lot sturdier. I use Pellon Easy Pattern and buy it by the bolt when Joanns has a big sale.

I think I may take a day soon and have a marathon cutting session of the rest of the T-shirts and some long-sleeve tops for this fall. I am going to want to get back to making quilts eventually, so it will help production if the tops are cut out and ready to assemble.

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Our whole community is on tenterhooks because of the big fire down in Finley Point, not because it threatens us—it doesn’t—but because we’re all keenly aware that “there but for the grace of God go I.” Something similar could happen here. I’ve been getting calls and texts from neighbors asking me what I know about various fires. I monitor the scanner and any fire calls for our department get sent as alerts to my phone. There are fire maps on the internet, but it takes some drilling down to figure out exactly what the maps are showing, and that’s causing a fair bit of confusion. One of the maps had a fire symbol in our neighborhood, but it turned out to be just a smoke investigation. No fire was ever found, but the map didn’t reflect that information. Another map showed a wildland fire that our fire department responded to back in May, but there was nothing to explain that the fire had long since been extinguished. And while social media is great for keeping people informed, some of this information gets passed around as gospel and people panic.

I’ve got a bag packed and know what I need to grab should we have to get out of here in a hurry. It’s nothing I haven’t done every fire season for 27 years.

We’re up in the 90s again today and tomorrow and then the heat finally breaks. What an awful summer.