Cookbook Review: Food In Jars

Blogger's Note: This post is long overdue.  I've had a copy of Food In Jars by Marisa McClellan in my possession since the day it was released (thanks to Amazon's fantastic pre-order service) and I was so instantly smitten with it that I spent two nights awake in bed reading it cover-to-cover.  Unfortunately, life just gets away from you sometimes and I haven't taken the time to sit-down and write-up this post until now.

I think every blogger, to some extent or another, has a "blogger crush" on some other blogger.   There's something about that person's work that you just like and that you aspire to achieve in your own work.  Maybe it's a certain "voice" in the writing or a sense of humor.  Maybe you admire the dedication to compose, shoot, and carefully prepare every single photo so that each post comes out just so.  Or maybe you just think, "Gee, if I knew this person in real life, I think we'd be instant friends."

If I were to pick one blogger I admire in this way, it's Marisa McClellan from FoodInJars.com.  Aside from Ball and the NCHFP, Marisa is probably the best and most well-known authority on all things canning.  And get this...she doesn't live on a farm or a homestead or any of the typical places you'd expect to find someone "putting-up" food.  She cans small batches of jams, pickles, chutneys, and just about anything else right in her very small apartment kitchen in Philadelphia.  I also envy Marisa because she's managed to do what I only dream to do...to make a living writing about a topic that she loves and is passionate about.

Enough of the gushing.  Let's talk about the book!  When it arrived, the book was a very pleasant surprise.  A lot of food bloggers have been getting publishing deals lately and I have to admit that some of them fail to impress.  Very often, they're filled with a handful of frilly, impractical recipes and they don't get enough into the meat and potatoes of the topic to be helpful for beginners.  Filled with delicious-sounding recipes and beautiful photos?  Yes.  Fun to look through?  Absolutely.  Constructed to sit open on the countertop amid sticky, wet, and slimy ingredients only to become stained and dog-eared over time from repeated use?  Usually, not the case.

Marisa's book is the complete opposite.  Here are a few reasons why:

Beginner Basics - Always a champion for educating the beginning canner and explaining it as simply as possible, Marisa boils-down the basics of what you need and how to do it into just a few pages, but leaves nothing important out.  I don't think I've ever seen it done in a more concise manner (and I've read quite a few canning books).

Construction - This book is designed as a cookbook, not as a coffee table picture book.  It's just the right dimensions to sit on your kitchen bookshelf and there's no detachable dust jacket.  The pages are sturdy, non-glossy, and once the spine is broken-in a bit, the book will eventualy lie flat (important when your hands are sticky with fruit juice).

Recipes -  This is not a book full of fancy recipes with lots of specialty ingredients.  This is a book with simple, low-yield recipes that just about any home cook can tackle.  Sure, there are some special treats in there, but they don't outnumber the basics that you'd expect to see like a simple peach or vanilla strawberry jam.  There's even a whole chapter devoted to granola!  Most importantly, this is all about small-batch preserving, so most of the recipes don't make more than 3-4 jars at a time and are designed to work with supermarket quantities of produce as opposed to bushels from the farm.

Design & Photos - While this is a serious use-it-in-the-kitchen kind of cookbook in terms of content, the photos are gorgeous and rival that of most coffee table cookbooks and food magazines.  As you're flipping through, your mouth waters and you want to jump up and make every recipe RIGHT NOW (or you wish the pages had free sample packets attached).

Voice - Marisa's voice comes through loud and clear and you'd swear you were reading her blog.  Every recipe has a generous head note that explains where the recipe came from and how she developed it.  Sometimes, they're filled with old family stories while others are more practical.


All and all, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you could actually replace The Ball Blue Book (the established Bible for beginners of home canning) with Food In Jars if you really wanted to.  At the same time, this book easily serves as inspiration for those of us who have been at it awhile to get back into the kitchen and try something new.  I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.

General Info:
Food In Jars - Preserving in Small Batches Year Round
by Marisa McClellan
Published by Running Press (2011)

Disclaimer: I purchased a copy of this book myself.  All thoughts, opinions, and shameless plugs contained in this post are my own and were not solicited by or paid for by the author or publisher.

Getting to Know Wine and Not Having to Be Snobby About It

First, I must apologize that my food blog has been so silent for the past few weeks. We've been doing some major home renovations. Not only has that taken-up a good chunk of my time but the kitchen has been quite out of commission, so I haven't been doing much cooking. We're not done yet, but during some downtime, I ran across something I'd like to share...

This evening, I watched John Cleese's Wine For the Confused and was pleasantly surprised at John's simple, approachable introduction to wine for the average person. For those of you who have Netflix, this is one of the free downloadable movies. You can watch it on the computer or on your TV if you have a Netflix-capable set-top-box.

Also, for those of you who aren't aware, John Cleese is a famous British comedian, most known for his roles in the "Monty Python" comedies as well as bringing the character of "Nearly Headless Nick" from the Harry Potter novels to life. This video is by no means an in-depth discussion of wine, nor is it overly corny being presented by a known comedian. It's very well done and targeted at those who know they like wine but feel out of place with the terminology, the types, how to choose a good wine, and how to behave at a wine tasting or a vineyard's tasting room. In short, it's a "how-to" for the everyday casual wine drinker.

I honestly learned more from this video than I did on my wine tour of the Napa Valley and, had I been armed with the info in this video, I think I would have enjoyed wine tasting in Napa and Sonoma much more (not that it wasn't fun--it was). He starts off with the simple statement that you shouldn't let anyone tell you which wine you "should" like. Like anything else, we all have different tastes and there's no shame in liking what you like and not liking what someone else likes. For years, I thought lobster was just "eh" and not worth the hefty price tag. I never thought anything was wrong with that--it was just the way my palate worked. Everyone should treat wine the same way. If an inexpensive bottle of blush like a white zinfandel is your favorite, there's nothing wrong with that. Drink-up! (Remind me to tell you sometime about my brief love affair with a gallon jug of ready-made sangria...lots of laughs).

After making that bold statement, John goes through what he calls "the three great whites and the three great reds," visiting several Napa Valley vineyards and talking to the owners about these grapes, what they bring to a bottle of wine, and what people typically like and dislike about wines made with those grapes. The grapes, by the way, are: riesling, chardonnay, (forget the third white), merlot, cabernet, and pinot noir. He talks to the vinters about what makes some wines sweet while others are dry, what makes them acidic versus those that aren't, and how different flavors like fruits and spices can be tasted in the wines.

He also takes time out for tastings with his friends to talk about how you can learn to describe the types of wines you like and don't like so someone can help you order or buy a new one. He does a blind test with his friends to see if people can identify reds from whites without looking (it was 50/50), and he proves that some person's $5 bottle is another's $200 bottle with yet another blind tasting.

The video finishes-off with ordering and serving tips given by good sommeliers (wine experts who work in retail establishments or restaurants).

Overall, the video was very informative and very well presented. It wasn't filled with jargon and too much food science...just enough to give the average Joe (or Jane) an appreciation and the confidence to walk into their local wine shop or liquor store and pick-out a bottle or two to take home and try and the confidence to order what they like without feeling out of place. I highly recommed it, especially if you plan to be going to a wine tasting or visiting some local wineries in the near future.