We’ve almost eaten all the pickles. The sweet salsa tomatoes
are all gone as are the stewed tomatoes that perked up vegetable soups and
Italian sauces. One half-pint spiced blueberry jam sits yet on the shelf
looking a bit bewildered. We have consumed the carefully preserved foods from
2014.
We know new produce will soon “come on” fast. Peas first,
then beans – little surprises under large green leaves – tomatoes will tease
with tiny yellow blossoms, then tiny green globes. But these take so long we
may become complacent until they ripen and for the love of life itself, you
better be ready for the beautiful, brilliant, succulent, . . . you get the
idea. If you are canning tomatoes this year start planning now.
This week I had an epiphany about preserving all this beauty
when we happened on an estate sale in our area. The sale consisted of mostly art,
oil paintings, from the hand of an elderly English professor at the university,
Elizabeth Hartley Rusk. She took to still life works. I imagined her enthusiasm
as she discovered light direction and its shadowy impact on the fruits and
container forms in her paintings. How she might have gathered her “models” for
these pieces – pots and bottles and pitchers of all sorts. How she chose the
varied colors of grapes and apples and peaches.
We could not resist. We selected some of these beauties to
bring home appreciating the artist’s fine efforts she gave to her art. Then, in
a flash, I realized that these paintings, works that were carefully crafted
compelling us to look at them and see, may be the ultimate experience of preserving foods.
Thank you for coming back. I had to complete a big project
leaving this little blog for a while. Please come again soon and thank you for
the increase in sales of A Homestead Decade, How Crunchy GranolaChanged My Life, we were delighted with the personal notes from some of
you.
Helene
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| Paintings by Elizabeth Hartley Rusk, English professor from Michigan State University passed in 2010 at the age of 98 |
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