Free Food

[Pam in Namur]

Hi Everyone. (Actually, is anyone out there? I haven't seen any
posts in a while.)

Before I get to the "free food" topic, let me put this in context.
Early this month I learned how to can. Between the Ball Blue Book
(thanks for the tip, Virge), and a friend who does a lot of canning, I
learned how to do the boiling-water bath canning method. Since then I
have been a regular customer at Fleet Farm, buying dozens of mason
jars at a time, and my "pantry shelf" in the basement is filling up
nicely.

Also as a sidebar - for anyone who does home canning and hasn't yet
read "Putting Food By" - I highly recommend it. It's a somewhat
scientific approach to home canning, but it will instill a proper
respect for care and cleanliness in the canning process.

Now, the free food. Ever since people found out that I'm doing
canning, I have gotten numerous offers of excess produce. It seems
that people don't want their garden bounty to go to waste, and will
give it away as long as they have the assurance that it will be used.
I've been amazed, and it's wonderful! Tomatoes, peppers, apples,
beans.... Last weekend a friend gave me, seriously, about 35 pounds
of beautiful Roma tomatoes. (This is the same friend that taught me
to can, and she already had put up enough tomatoes for a small army.)
Someone at work gave me cherry tomatoes (which I dried), and someone
else brought peppers and tomatoes that became a wicked hot slasa
(although that won't be canned since I'm not sure if it's acid
enough). My boss is giving me pears (he and his wife canned enough
last year to last for two years), and another firend's parents have an
apple orchard with more apples than they can use. It's amazing.

Now I know the purpose of the Challenge isn't to see how much money
you can save, but it's certainly a by-product. I still go to the
farmer's market and pick up some stuff - especially fresh salad
greens. But my trips to Econo Foods have become almost comical, with
my shopping card a combination of pet food, wine (DC produced, even if
the grapes may be imported), beer (New Glarus, outside of 100 miles,
but not by much), and milk. If people give it a thought, I'm sure
they wonder what kind of bizarre diet I'm on. :)

The way things are looking, we're going to have plenty of food for
winter. My "parameter" for the challenge is to try for 75% local for
the year, and at the moment it looks very do-able.

BTW, if anyone has done a "respond to author" for a previous post, it
probably never got to me. We changed internet providers, and I forgot
to change my profile here until a couple of days ago. My new email is
phj...@centurytel.net.

FInal note - thanks for sending the journal Virge. I'm doing my best
to keep good notes!
Pam