Recently I started teaching a new class–Fundamentals of Home Canning!  I’ve taught a this class a couple of times now, […]

Yep, it’s that time of year,,,,when I feel increasing vegetable-related anxiety creeping in. I venture into our attic or cellar […]

Last night I taught a class on how to make and can Spiced Pear jam. The students were an enthusiastic […]

These last couple of days have been a blast! I was invited to Brunswick Highschool to teach three different classes […]

Prior to the publication of the updated edition of my book in 2021, one of the comments I that heard […]

Local friends! Any chance you’re free next monday evening? If so, please consider joining me for a class on making […]

Here in Maine, it’s finally strawberry season! It’s a short-lived and much-anticipated time of year….local berries grown in fields, without […]

Friends! A few nights ago I taught a class on making and canning strawberry jam. It was a great night […]

One of the big additions to the new edition of my book is a chapter on using Pomona’s pectin to […]

Friends! I am so excited to share that the updated edition of my book Preserving with Pomona’s Pectin hits the […]

              Yes, it’s that time!  Our local pick-your-own strawberry fields have just opened up, […]

Happy August everyone!  Wow, what a month of bounty! Broccoli and cauliflower are in the freezer, the green beans and […]

Yay, it’s finally strawberry season!  I know that lots of you further south have been enjoying local berries for a while […]

Happy almost summer, everyone!  I’m loving the hot weather and getting dirty in the garden (especially after such a long, […]

I had a fun opportunity last week to be a guest on a Maine Calling–a great program on Maine Public […]

It was great to be back in the “207” kitchen the other day to make some blueberry-maple jam! (Video unavailable–sorry!) […]

Photo copyright Fairwinds Press Happy Saturday Afternoon!  I hope you’re enjoying the weekend.  So, I wanted to let you  all […]

Every year during strawberry season, I’m caught off-guard just a little bit.  Not by the berries, or the weather, or […]

If you didn’t catch my jam-making segment on “207” last night, here it is!  Enjoy! Video Copyright NewsCenterMaine Honeyed Strawberry-Rhubarb […]

Good morning!  I just wanted to let you all know that the good folks at Fairwinds Press are doing a […]

The season is finally here–fiddleheads are up!  They’ve been up around here for a few weeks actually, and we’ve gotten […]

There’s a lot of outdoor work going on around here these days.  We’ve been preparing our current garden for planting, […]

Every weekend from late February through the end of March, we’re pretty much focused on one thing–making maple syrup. We […]

I was back at the WCSH6 studios the other day, taping a new segment on Blueberry-Vanilla Jam for “207” (Video […]

The boys and I have been making bread together since they were babies, but the process has definitely evolved over […]

In late October we made our annual trip to Hope Orchards.  I have a fondness for the place, as I […]

I’ve been wanting to make a gingerbread house with the boys for years, and we finally did it!  It was […]

After having been totally focused on the book for most of the summer, I’m glad to have had an opportunity […]

Remember the vegetable triaging (as it were) going on around here earlier this fall?  We’ll, I’m finally getting to the […]

Our apple trees did rather poorly this year.  While last year we were amazed by the remarkable quantity of apples […]

September is always a busy time for me in the garden and in the kitchen, as I imagine it is […]

This summer has a been a busy one for sure….short on hiking  and gardening and swimming and many of our […]

This will be our first growing season at our new place, and we finally, for the first time in many years, […]

Yes, that is indeed snow on the ground…it seems like an appropriate time to tell you all about our winter […]

I know…. it’s a bit out of season to be talking about maple syrup in late April, with the buds […]

Back in mid-February, when we had a brief thaw and it felt a bit spring-like, we tapped the first of […]

I love muffins.  Connor and Ian love them just as much–probably more, even.  I’m pretty sure this has something to […]

Ok, I’ll just say it.  Ben and I and the boys have fallen totally in love with our new place. […]

For a couple of months in the fall and early winter we were running back and forth frequently between our […]

By mid-November, I was starting to feel a little bit guilty about the kale.  It had been quietly patient, waiting […]

In late October I had the opportunity to teach a canning class hosted by the Gastronomy M.L.A program at Boston […]

For the past few years, in the fall, the boys and I have taken a road trip to Hope Orchards […]

As if the craziness of unpacking wasn’t enough, leave it to us to add several black trash bags and a […]

Perhaps you’ve noticed that, well, things have been a bit quiet here on the blog lately.  My apologies for that. […]

Aaahhh, Swiss chard.  It’s one of my most favorite vegetables.  I have childhood memories of my grandfather eating boiled chard […]

When I inventoried our chest freezer in the basement back in June, I found that we still had, um, kind […]

We got our first big heads of broccoli in mid july, and have been continuing to harvest the smaller shoots […]

Ok, so I just realized that my last six posts have all been about strawberries. (Did I mention one-track mind?!?) […]

Remember Connor’s bowl of mashed strawberries that was sitting in the fridge, waiting for me to get liquid pectin at […]

Connor has been strawberry picking with me every year since he was one (or almost two, really, since his birthday […]

We went strawberry picking for a third time a few days ago and picked another twenty pounds, bringing us up […]

It’s strawberry season!  It has been for a couple of weeks now actually, and I’d been itching to pick berries […]

Last week was a busy week of classes for me.  I taught two workshops on making and canning jams, jellies […]

Today was the first day that really felt like summer to me.  It was gloriously hot and humid (yes, I […]

This past weekend, Ben and I and the boys headed out to collect eelgrass for the garden.  Eelgrass looks kind […]

With my thoughts on the less tangible aspects of our big Memorial day planting weekend in my last post, I […]

Memorial Day weekend is always the time that Ben and I do the vast majority of the planting in our […]

Last week we began our annual springtime push to get the gardens ready for planting.  No matter how much we […]

Since the fiddleheads weren’t up yet when we checked on one of our favorite picking spots the weekend before last, […]

Have you ever been tempted to ignore your compost pile in the winter time because snow made it difficult to […]

It’s fiddlehead season here in Maine again!  This is usually the first foraging outing of the spring for us, and […]

As you might remember from my earlier post, I got a new batch of sauerkraut going back in the middle […]

My mom told me the other day that my grandmother Rauha used to dye her own wool, out of natural […]

Remember the lonely maple tree out in front of our house that we tapped a few weeks ago?  Well, she […]

Last fall I bought 25 pounds of green cabbage from a local farm, and made sauerkraut with some of it […]

Some folks have a spice rack, or a spice cupboard.  For us, it’s a spice drawer, and at the moment […]

Finally, we’ve had a slight (and what I’m sure will be temporary) break from the cold temperatures and the mountains […]

Today I’m making food for some friends of ours who just had a second baby.  I’m planning on doing a […]

Remember the four bushels of apples I bought back in November?   Ah, yes–the apples.  Well, in case you were […]

Per usual, Ben was in the kitchen last weekend–this time making Christmas cookies with the boys.  It’s getting to be […]

Ben almost always cooks on the weekends–usually making our family dinners for both Saturday and Sunday nights.  Not that we […]

A week or so ago, Connor, Ian and I made what is becoming our annual trip to Ricker Hill Orchards […]

I got a group email the other day from the coordinator of the community garden where Ben and I have […]

We’ll, were finally bottling the cider.  We started it just over a year ago–right around Halloween of 2009. It’s been […]

I just thought I’d let you all know, in case you haven’t seen it in my upcoming class listing, that […]

I’ve been working on more can-able recipes using maple, and since we’re in the midst of fall, and it’s apple […]

Remember our trip to Hope Orchards the other day to buy pears?  Well, one really fun thing going on while […]

I love pears, so for the past couple of years during pear season I’ve been buying local pears in bulk. […]

There’s no getting around it: Peeling and coring apples takes LOTS of time.  Especially when you have to continually pause […]

Hey there—just want to let you all know that I’ll be teaching a couple of classes on making and canning […]

As soon as that fall feeling is in the air, I start to think about apples.  It’s one of my […]

Hi Everyone.  I just want to let you all know that I’ll be teaching a couple of classes on canning […]

Yep, I still have a LOT of tomatoes to put up.  We’ve had some beautiful days, so Connor and Ian […]

This summer I’ve been developing a few can-able recipes using maple syrup.  I just got a box of fresh, local […]

Ok, I have to admit, I’ve imposed a bit of a daunting task on myself.  Yesterday I purchased a crate […]

Can we all agree that overgrown green beans are, shall we say, not so great?   This would be precisely […]

Connor, Ian, and I made a trip up the coast to visit my mom and step-father Etienne this past week, […]

Yes indeed, we are still putting up a lot of green beans around here.  The other day I got a […]

When we got back from blueberry picking at Estes Farm the other day, we had lots of berries to wash […]

I can’t seem to help myself when it comes to local pick-your-own fruit.  Even though we’re planning to buy a […]

The garden is absolutely overflowing with green beans.  Last night I found a large handful of them in my purse. […]

The cucumbers in our garden are doing alright, but they are not quite as productive as I’d hoped this year. […]

Ok, the green beans are going crazy.  Funny how it can look like there’s not much going on, and then […]

Yesterday, the boys and I went corn shopping  (Sounds funny, doesn’t it?).  Corn is one of those things that we […]

Well, considering all the urgency I felt around needing to collect the eelgrass, it has taken me way too long […]

Yesterday I was back again at Ten Apple Farm, a diversified homestead in Gray run by my good friend Margaret […]

Yesterday, the boys and I met my dad at the beach to collect our favorite mulch for the garden–eelgrass. Eelgrass […]

With all the just-picked fresh strawberries in our house, jam was one of my big projects for this past weekend. […]

Yes indeed, strawberries are one of my all-time favorite fruits.  Always have been.  As a kid I loved going to […]

It’s strawberry season again!  And it came early this year–due, I suppose, to the unseasonably warm winter and relatively early […]

Earlier today I glanced into the sun porch and saw Connor there, quietly watching the seedlings.  What a lovely thing […]

We went fiddlehead picking again mid last week, and finally they were up for real!  We got to enjoy a […]

Now that we have our potting soil ready, we can finally get our seedlings going.  Yesterday was a gorgeous, sunny […]

Last weekend was definitely a rainy weekend, but at this time of year we just don’t have the luxury of […]

Every year about mid-April, my husband Ben and I, as well as my brother John, start keeping our eyes on […]

I have a handful of vivid memories of my maternal Finnish-American grandmother, Rauha, from when I was growing up….knitting, collecting […]

Well, I brought home two half-pints of marmalade from last Saturday’s canning class, and by Sunday evening had managed to […]

Saturday was a really fun day.  I taught a class on canning orange marmalade at Ten Apple Farm in Gray, […]

As much as I appreciate the depth and complexity of a slow-rising, whole grain bread, there’s a time and and […]