October 10, 2013: In 2013, King County Library System ran a series of free events called "A Place at the Table," all focused on food. One such offering was a Canning 201 class with local author and "Check, Please!" host Amy Pennington. I headed out to the North Bend library with a couple friends, intrigued by the prospect of learning how to make a ginger beer and other ways of taking preserving to the next level.
After a quick review of basic canning techniques, we moved into next steps with canning. Like: modifying flavors. It's important to be familiar and aware of the limitations of modifications. Trusted recipes have been tested to ensure they have proper levels of acidity, cooking time, etc., to be safe from botulism. So playing around with major components is best left to Master Preservers and canning experts. But changes in the flavor profile by using different herbs or spices is a way to expand the possibilities of your trusted recipes without putting the safety of the product at risk. Here, Amy showed us the way different flavoring agents changed the profile of the caramel poaching liquid by passing out jars filled with different infusions. My favorite was the cinnamon thyme, and the sesame seed was also a top pick in the room.
Here was the final product - a vanilla-caramel poached pear that is ready for use as an elegant dessert any time. Amy discussed best ways to prep your fruit to ensure a pretty jar AND pretty end result later when you use it. I love the idea of this - a shelf-stable dessert you can always have on hand, ready to go with a scoop of ice cream.
On to the main attraction for my crew: the ginger bug. This is like a sourdough starter or vinegar mother: a little concentrated incubator for the beneficial yeasties that you can then use in a ginger soda with the base of your choice. Check out this blog post for a similar method to Amy's.
Amy also discussed other preserving methods, like drying fruits or making fruit leathers. This one was an experiment for Amy in sprinkling the leather with calendula and rose petals, which, she noted, "look beautiful, doesn't taste like anything, kind of annoying to eat..." (It's always nice to be reminded that even for experts, not all experiments are successes.) Got a lot of great tips from Amy, and my friend Heather who was there with me, visiting from Paris, was happy to learn how to make a ginger beer and picked up a copy of Amy's book "Urban Pantry." Its focus on small-scale home economics might be just the way to make some food preservation projects possible in Heather itsy Parisian apartment.
And a quick aside - in case you are wondering why I took a friend visiting from Europe to a library an hour out of town. Well, a) that's just...the Fresh-Picked way. But b) Heather and I watched Twin Peaks together back in the day, so I took advantage of the tiny road trip to also take her on a mini-tour of some Twin Peaks sights. We saw the opening credits falls (Snoqualmie Falls) and the Great Northern Hotel (Salish Lodge).
Then headed to Twede's for dinner. The exteriors were used as the Double R Diner.
Was it the best cherry pie ever? Not really. But the coffee was good & it was still an entertaining addition to our little mini-tour. So while Amy's next class is not in North Bend, if something else brings you that way (or you are a big Twin Peaks fan and haven't yet made the pilgrimage), it's a fun addition to an outing. Twin Peaks was hugely influential on me as a teenager and a big part of why I went to film school. (And, I think, why later in life I found myself more attracted to the longer form of well-done TV shows than movies.) So it is sometimes just striking to me that for entirely other reasons, I find myself as a grown-up living in the landscape of Laura Palmer.
And - if you are not sure if you can keep a ginger bug alive or want a soda ready the same day - Heather and I came home that evening and learned another way to make ginger soda sans fermentation is by mixing a ginger syrup with bubbly water and lemon. I just happened to have the syrup on hand from an experiment early this year and threw it together as our nonalcoholic nightcap. But now today, writing this up, I just searched for an actual recipe online and found one from David Lebovitz. Who lives in Paris, of course, AND is friends with my friend Heather. They even have put out an app together. Small world! Tiny sometimes!
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