Who Will Provide the Reparations?

This morning, as hurricane Ike barrels down on the city of Houston, I can't help but think about the time, a few years ago, when famed hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, a neighbor-city to that town in Texas that is threatened today.

My thoughts about Katrina aren't necessarily about people living on housetops as the flood waters swirled beneath them. Nor are they about the huddled masses living in the midst of the utter despair of the dark and sored Superdome. The thoughts that are racing through my mind are not the thoughts of destruction, but of response to that destruction - specifically by the people of Houston.

You see, I believe that a society isn't measured so much by the challenges they are handed, but by their response to those challenges. And in the years that have passed since that great Hurricane, the body of evidence suggests that a neighboring city - the city of Houston, and a great many other communities for that matter - were a beacon on a hill for the survivors of that swirling mass of destruction.

And so as hurricane Ike takes aim at Houston, I'm wondering how New Orleans will respond to the sister-city who provided so much for them, such a short time ago. Time will tell. And a short amount of time, at that.

Put that in Your Jar and Boil it.

A few years ago, I was at an upscale restaurant in California and noticed a chef preparing a sauce. The interesting part was this - the first step in the process for the chef was opening a large, half gallon jar of some sort of tomato concoction. Keep in mind, the chef didn't open a can, he opened a bottle.

Upon closer inspection - it was a bottle that was home-canned! After doing a little detective work, I found that this restaurant spends a good portion of time during the harvest bottling the bounty they grow in their own gardens - only to serve those up later in the year. And this isn't just any restaurant, it's one owned by world-famous chef, Alice Waters.

So, that little episode got me thinking - if great chefs think canning produce is a worthy ambition, then what's stopping us from jumping into the sealed-lid fray?

So far, we've canned tomatilla salsa, traditional salsa and chili sauce. Tonight we're making grape jelly. In the coming days we are planning to bottle corn salsa, tomatoes, peaches and - heaven help me - pears.

Got any great canning recipes or secrets to share?