New Canning Vessel

This salsa is actually fairly spicy. The tomatoes are not heirlooms, so they are not quite as flavorful as the first batch.

We used the food processor to actually chop the tomatoes, instead of chopping everything by hand. This helped quite a bit with time.

• 16 c chopped, cored tomatoes
• 4 1/2 c red and white onions
• 2 1/2 c green and red bell peppers
• 1.5 c fresh cilantro leaf, chopped
• 8 garlic cloves
• 2/3 Tbsp salt
• 8 thai hot peppers (moderately hot)
• 8 something else peppers (not very hot at all)

I also used an ancient metal water vessel to heat the water bath for canning. We had been using it for a wood carrier for years. I cleaned it up, scrubbed it out, and tested it for leaks. It works great! There’s enough room in it that by the time I get to the last row of jars, the the first ones are ready to come out, so I can work constantly and not wait for anything to boil or cook.

Cane and turbinado sugar.

Vegan.

Vegan.

It gelled moderately well (extremely well for a no-pectin-added jam), and the lemon and lime adds a very nice tartness.

I used the full quantity of sugar, mostly cane crystals with some turbinado sugar added for fun.

First jam I’ve ever made, came out really really nicely!

Vegan.

First batch, 3 good pints, one refridgerator pint because of a chipped jar that I failed to notice.

• 7 cups tomatoes
• 2 cups yellow and white onions
• 1 cup green bell pepper
• 4 large red wannabe-spicy peppers from the garden
• 4 cloves garlic
• 3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley
• 1/2 tsp fresh cumin
• 1 tsp salt

Second batch, 4 good pints, plus a little for tasting

• 6 cups tomatoes
• 1 juiced lemon
• 1 juiced lime
• 2 large peaches, treated with that juice
• 1 very hopeful red bell pepper
• 1+ cup red onion
• 1/4 cup parsley
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp fresh mint
• 1 tsp salt

This second batch was somewhat different than the original recipe. It called for 4 cups tomatoes, and 2 cups pears, as well as 2 cups peaches. I did not have pears, so I substituted another 2 cups of tomatoes for the pears. The recipe called for liquid honey. I am not sure how (or if) liquid honey differs from regular oozing honey, but I think the honey needs to be in proportion to the fruit. In other words, since I only used half the fruit requested, I ought to have used half the quantity of honey requested, as it ended up being a little strong.

Neither recipe called for salt. That boggles my mind.

I also burned the bejeezus out of my hand from an accidentally overheated ladle. Ow. Live and learn. Do not put your tools on the stove…

First time canning, all jars sealed. Looks good, tastes better!

Perhaps with some TLC and a touch of practice, it might eventually be a bit easier.

I wonder if it would even be possible to accomplish useful programming on the stereotypical Android tablet.

After a few hours of semi-use, I discovered that when it was time to check GMail, I was annoyed at the effort required to do so on the desktop.  Stupid American consumerism.

Chapter 2: Ride like a maniac on a knobby-tired mountain bike 4 miles to shelter.  Discover you have no keys, get mad.

Chapter 3: Get driven back to the office, get your keys, get driven back to shelter.  Ride goes away, discover you left the seat clamp in the car, making the bike effectively unrideable.

Chapter 4: Sleep.

Chapter 5: Run the 4 miles back with office gear in backpack, barefoot because you have no running shoes.  Stop at CVS half way for duct tape because the sidewalks compare favorably with 10-grit sandpaper in texture.

Chapter 6: Endorphins are great.  Feel no pain.

2 potatoes.

I don’t even have any olive oil, since I haven’t exchanged the last bottle I bought.  (Non-expeller-pressed olive oil, tastes and smells like solvent.)

Oh wait, I have wild rice.  I also have some purple potatoes on the counter that I forgot about, and some garlic.  This might turn out well after all!  I even crumbled up some leftover uncooked rice pasta shells.

It’s still plain, even with spices.  At this point, after coming home from a 6-9:30 class, heavenly.  Manna indeed.

The plan was to stop every mile and stretch and walk to break up the steady wear-down. Once I started running, I ended up moving past each mile marker until 12.x when I walked a couple hundred feet. The first 6 miles were easy, as I routinely run 5-6 miles in my lunch break at work. I forced myself to keep a slow, steady pace, even as hundreds of runners passed me.

By mile 3, I developed a nice runners’ high.

Mile 7 was a new record, as I have never run more than 6.1 miles in a single day.

By mile 8, my slow pace was paying off. I kept a steady pace on uphills, and I started to pass people regularly.

Mile 9 stretch out a little longer than I expected. Mile 10 was noticeably longer, and by 11, I was pretty sure the distances were increasing on an exponential curve. I kept a steady pace, passing other runners constantly.

Towards the end of mile 12, I developed a pain in my right hip, possibly due to excessive heel-strike. I ran until the pain hit redline, then slowed to a walk. It felt like my feet were wheels rolling downhill and I was helpless to stop them. Once my feet had regained some range-of-motion (less than a quarter mile) I picked up the race again, and ran to the finish.

For the last minute, I was running parallel with another man and his trainer, who was encouraging him to sprint to finish. I took his words for my own, and sprinted the last couple hundred feet through the finish line. I had no conscious control of my feet at that point; the sensation was elated, powerful, predatory, hungry, joyful, laughing. I remember laughing as I crossed the finish line. I couldn’t feel my feet, but it was all good. Everything was good.

Until I found stairs. Stairs were a problem.

I sat and saved the run into Google Tracks, then went and found a banana and free beer. The beer started to kill the runners’ high, so I left it on a random table and went wandering around the city barefoot but not naked.

Equipment list:

• Flip flops
• Cargo shorts and techwick shirt
• Music player and headphones
• Cash, ID, insurance and keys
• 20 oz water
• 2 aspirin, 1 energy gum, and a pinch of raw tobacco
• Phone, GPS recording the track

Yes, I ran in flip flops. I received a lot of commentary; mostly favorable, some sarcastic. “Are you sure you’re ready for this race?” It was all good. I had no blisters, no injuries, and my feet were barely sore. The flip flops, sadly, are mostly gone by after a few years of constant use. It’s too bad; they cost $1.83.

Around mile 12, when I had to slow to a walk, I took out an aspirin and put it in my mouth to swallow it with some of the water. The moment I got the taste of it, I reflexively spit it out. Bad stuff, not the chemical for helping a race.

I then tried a small pinch of tobacco. It was dried, organic smoking tobacco that I picked up from a small smoke shop in Burlington, VT, some months ago. I chewed it up to let the salivary enzymes break down and release the chemicals, and held it in my mouth through the end of the race. The thought was to test the theory that tobacco would help sports performance in this context and method of usage. It does.

I would have rather used fresh leaves, but I don’t know where to source them locally. I’ve never tried tobacco in any form before, other than tasting a tiny pinch last week to make sure I wasn’t deathly allergic to the stuff. Before anyone gets their pants in a knot over tobacco usage; I read up on the health effects of tobacco, positive and negative, and made my own educated decision. I’ll probably post a lengthy post on this topic later.

My time was 2:28. My goal was to finish under 3 hours.