Front Porch: Preserving a way of life she’s ready to share

Growing up in a pretty urban environment, I developed certain skills based on that environment – one of which, most definitely, was not the canning or freezing of fresh fruits and vegetables. Never heard of such a thing.

As a youngster I understood that fruit and vegetables came from someplace else, not our or a neighbor’s backyard. That someplace else was the grocery store.

As it turned out, I married a man who was the son of a Wisconsin farm girl and an Iowa farm boy. Early on in my marriage, my mother-in-law volunteered to teach me how to not only grow things but also how to preserve them.

I thought it might be fun to learn a new skill. And here I am, more than 50 years later, still at it. Other than growing some rhubarb, which you can only kill, I believe, by pummeling it down with a sledge hammer, and harvesting our two apple trees, I never got too much into the growing of things.

For many years until his death, my father-in-law grew a great garden in Spokane Valley. My job was to get everything put up for the winter.

In recent decades, it’s been about the fruit. There was much that I got from friends and family, which I jammed or canned whole. My sister-in-law lives in Wenatchee, so much came from there. But more and more, I have to buy the fruit.

A recent thing has occurred which brought me full circle – when it comes to heritage and fruit.

I had given a jar of my homemade strawberry jam a couple of times to a neighbor, a woman I don’t know well, even though we’ve lived a few houses apart for 30 or more years. We chat at the mailbox or when we pass one another’s driveways, but due to conflicting schedules and demands on family time, nothing developed beyond that.

She and her husband have been in America much of their lives, but come originally from Taiwan. She asked me not long ago if I’d teach her how to make the jam she’s come to like so much.

I have another friend who grew up in nearby rural Rosalia, Washington. Tom and his wife are the first people of our age that Bruce and I met when we came to Spokane in the 1960s, and have been friends with since.

He likes the canned cherries I make every year and is always happy when I give him a quart to take home after the four of us have had dinner and an evening of pinochle. He asked recently if I’d show him to do the canning so he could do it himself.

I agreed to do both, and arranged to do so at my house, since I have all the equipment, jars, rims, lids, etc.

Bruce and I made a trip to Wenatchee a several weeks ago to visit his sister. She had arranged with the owners of a neighborhood mom-and-pop orchard for me to pick up Bing cherries while we were there. If purchased by the 18-pound box, they were not only fresh picked, but just $2 a pound.

I bought five boxes – not all of which were for us. Some went to friends here in Spokane, including one box for friend Tom.

On a Friday afternoon, I showed my neighbor how to make strawberry jam. The next day we drove to Wenatchee, visited and got the cherries. Sunday, I canned and processed two boxes of cherries in quart jars. Tom came over Monday afternoon, and we canned and water-bathed 11 quarts of cherries, and he took the rest of his box home for eating fresh.

And that night I finished off the canning of our third box, much of which had been decimated by eating as we went.

I have a friend with a plum tree, and I often get excess fruit from her for canning and jam making. Hoping that comes to be this year. I had some frozen huckleberries, so that became one batch of jam this year.

And we’ll see what happens when peach season rolls around.

Much of what I make goes out as gifts, but the bulk travels to Seattle for my son, who tells me he’s not sure he’s eaten any jam that didn’t come out of my kitchen (yes, flattery will keep the jam flowing.)

I’m a little stunned that I’ve had the energy to do all this, what with the surgeries and assorted ailments of the past year, but I’m so pleased that I’ve been able to do it.

But what takes me back to the beginning of this tale is the amazing juxtaposition of this old city girl, with subway riding skills and urban survival skills well learned, teaching such country crafts as canning and preserving to a Taiwanese neighbor and a country-boy pal.

Life sure is interesting. God bless America.

Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by email at upwindsailor@comcast.net.