From the archives: Marilyn on pickling with the boys

Betsy's mom Marilyn is currently undergoing chemo in her fight against breast cancer, and can't get out of her house much. She's has been sending lots of great updates, and I thought you'd enjoy her story of canning with the boys. Thank you, Marilyn.

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alan, the girls and i moved to this house in baltimore more than 30 years ago. each summer since then i have done home canning. always making applesauce. usually pickles too. and a variety of other things. most years i can and preserve a couple hundred jars of a handful of different things. it is one of the highlights of my year.

last year at this time carter and calvin spent a lot of time with me. and we worked so hard. the boys have canned with me each year and have a better notion of the fundamentals of canning than most of you might have. carter was 6 and calvin 3, and carter had decided he wanted to enter things he made in the maryland state fair. so we had our work cut out for us.

at the moment i can recall only 5 of the 6 categories he entered. bread & butter pickles. whole pickled beets. pickled green beans. green tomato pickles. hot sauce. carter is a good cook, with interesting ideas about food. and he has very high standards. so he was a bit disappointed that of the 5 ribbons he won, none was a blue ribbon. the whole pickled beets were not very good. the other pickles were appealingly and professionally packed, and tasted great. his hot sauce was terrific! and another year i'll make some again. the first recipe we tried was alright - granny smith and jalapeno peppers. but not up to carter's exacting standards. we tried another combo, tinkered a bit and made a fantastic red haven peach and habanero hot sauce. awe didn't get to taste the other entries, but the only one judged better than carter's must have been a doozy.

carter did all the work on his state fair entries except when it involved anything boiling. he's a terrific worker and it was a treat being his assistant. calvin, for his part, was also an excellent worker. every year for the past several years first carter, and now carter and calvin have made christmas and holiday gifts for their many friends and family. if i had to guess, they might well give a whole lot more gifts than most any of you give. the total is over 100. they are wonderful, generous and very sociable people.

so last year at this time, calvin was hard at work on christmas presents. he made gallons of deliciously flavored vinegars. he filled huge glass canning jars with a peck of garlic cloves and then filled the jars to overflowing with white vinegar. he filled other jars with a peck of fresh red raspberries (carter noted that calvin assiduously tested every handful of berries for quality, and ate any that were bad) and calvin filled those jars to overflowing with white vinegar too. i sliced habanero peppers and packed the jars with them - that makes me the pickle packer. then calvin filled the last jars to overflowing with white vinegar.

since my parisian son-in-law loves his hot sauces, we had one final labor of love. we made a few jars of some very flavorful and very hot hot sauces for chris. his birthday is in september. chris, uncle roberto and a couple of guys named mike were pretty happy with those. (i think i actually got a marriage proposal out of those hot sauces. that’s how hot and delectable they were.)

a year ago my house was filled with busy, happy, tired little boys every night. this year it is just one grandma who seems to be tired not only every night but also every day too. and i am impatient sometimes with myself. even so, my energy levels today and yesterday are prodigious, almost unbounded compared to what i had only days ago. cathy is quick and insistent in reminding me that i have one thing to do right now and it requires my every effort, waking and sleeping: i need to get better. that does take a lot of energy and attention. though in my heart there remains a sparkle of hope that i could get in a bit of canning again this season.