Page 52 of Big Island Weddings
To make things worse, the passing months hadn’t dulled his charm. If anything, the man’s patience and intelligence had increased the initial pull that Emma had felt.
She was nowhere near ready to date again – she mightneverbe ready to date again – and the confused feelings that the whole situation left her with were nothing but a distraction from the life that she was working to build for herself and her son.
Her son. Emma’s heart contracted in her chest. No doubt that bringing another man into their lives would be traumatic for a seven-year-old boy who still spoke of his late father in the present tense more often than not.
Emma was so caught up in her thoughts that she blinked with surprise to find herself pulling into the dirt lot at the edge of the permaculture property. She had driven there onautopilot, completely ignoring her niece. Apparently Juniper hadn’t noticed. The teenager was lost in her own thoughts, a dreamy expression on her face.
“Ready?” Emma asked.
Juniper startled and flashed her aunt a guilty smile. “Born ready.”
The class met at the covered outdoor kitchen that stood at the center of the Pualena Permaculture food forest. There were all sorts of cooking and canning supplies set out on the tables that had never been there before, along with piles of locally grown food, and Emma’s stomach growled in anticipation. Each of the classes had combined hard labor with the day’s lecture. Today they would literally taste the fruits of their labors.
“Looks like we’re all here, or near enough,” Keith said when they were past the class’s scheduled start time. “Thank you everyone for coming. Each and every one of you is providing a tremendous service to the island and to the world by growing food with regenerative, sustainable practices. It’s been my honor to teach you. Today, we feast!”
The last bit was met by a smattering of laughter and applause, and Keith dove into divvying them up for prep work. When all manner of foods were cut and cooking, he brought them together again.
“Now I’m going to set up stations, and I would love for anyone familiar with these methods to help the beginners. Has anyone here canned before?”
Emma looked around at the other students. No one raised their hand – not terribly surprising, given that they were on an island where food grew year round. Bounty was shared with neighbors more often than it was preserved for the future. Still, it was a valuable skill.
Hesitantly, she lifted her hand into the air.
Keith’s bright blue eyes found hers, and he grinned. “Emma! Will you lead our canning station?”
A protest rose in her throat, but she had essentially volunteered already.
It had been a long time since she’d canned anything, but she was reasonably certain that she still remembered how it was done. Her mother still made apple butter every year as a Christmas gift, and Emma had helped her with that at least a dozen times. Then there had been Toni’s early market days, before she pivoted to specialize in herbs and flours, when they had canned piles of squash and beans and other produce that she hadn’t been able to sell.
She bit her lip and nodded.
“Wonderful! And Juniper, I think you mentioned prior experience with drying herbs?” Keith diverted Jun to another table, and Emma was left facing a crowd of people interested in learning how to can.
She had come to know each of them – to some extent or another – over the course of their class, but suddenly finding herself at the front was intimidating all the same. She had never taught adults before… but really, could they be any more difficult than a room full of five year olds?
“Well then.” She rolled up the sleeves of the oversized plaid shirt – one of Adam’s – that she wore as a sweater. “Let’s see what we have to work with.”
She looked over the tables and cataloged them out loud, speaking to her classmates.
“This big pot here will work for water bath canning. That’s mostly just used for preserves made with vinegar, like pickles, or sugar, like the guava jam that’s cooling over here. For meat or broth, you’ll want to use a pressure canner.”
“I’d rather use a freezer,” a man grumbled.
“Or just a freezer with backup generator, right. But pressure canning is more cost effective, and it works for just about anything. Tuna, squash, whatever you’ve got.
“This brand of pot here doesn’t have a gasket, it’s just metal on metal. My mom has the same one. It actually belonged to my grandma. These things last forever.
“For jars, older ones like this collection here are best. I’ve seen tons of them at the transfer stations. You can also buy a big case from a farm store, but the newer jars tend to be thinner. The last time my mom tried to use cheap new jars to can a batch of apple butter, half of the jars broke in the canner. Now she only uses older jars. Or, failing that, the big name brands are usually a safe bet.”
“Do you have to use a new lid every time?” one of the women asked.
“That’s best practice,” Emma told her. “These thin lids aren’t designed to be used more than once. But between you and me, my grandma used hers a hundred times over. It might be a matter of quality, though, the ones she bought decades ago versus what you can get now.”
“They do sell reusable lids,” another woman said.
“You’re right, they do. I haven’t tried them myself, and I don’t suppose you’ll get that popping sound that the thin lids give you when they’re ready, but they might be a good investment.”
With the help of her classmates-turned-students, Emma canned dozens of jars of guava jam. They also made pickled chayote with li hing mui powder. When those were done, they packed a round of jars with long beans and preserved those with the pressure canner.
