Greetings from suburban Freakinhotadelphia. When the heat index climbed to 115 yesterday - and this ain't no dry heat, friends - we caved and installed our second window air conditioner. We can now shut off three of the main living spaces (like many big old houses, ours has multiple doors off of each room) and remain in relative comfort. Leaving the now-cooled Pullman-style rooms requires yanking open a paint- and heat-swollen door to the sounds of everyone else yelling, "Shut the door!" and gasping for air like a carnival goldfish being transferred from its baggie.

But now the kitchen, dining room and living room are cooler and comfortable, if somewhat messier, what with the toys, books, and DVD that have emigrated from the house's uncooled areas. Having the newly cooly inviting kitchen I decided to can the four pounds of cherries that I pitted over the weekend. Because they were already pitted, the entire operation was a short one - maybe 20 minutes, not including processing. And, cherries are one of the very easy fruits to process, because their liquid can be syrup, fruit juice or water. I used the soaking water in which I stored the pitted fruit in the fridge, and which had a bit of lime juice added to it to help preserve color. So, even more than pickles or jam, cherries are an easy-peasy project for novice canners, using as little as the fruit and water.



I gave my love a cherry.... Jeez. I hate it when I'm a sucker for the obvious joke. Ah, well.

You know how, on The New Yankee Workshop, Norm Abram always interrupts the project of the day to remind his viewers to always read the instructions that come with their power tools and to wear safety goggles? Here's the Hot Water Bath version of that PSA: Every box of canning jars comes with basic canning instructions. Be sure to read and understand them before you're standing in front of a pot of boiling sugar syrup, jam or pickling brine. You can also read this for an excellent primer on the subject. Don't worry, it's not as involved as it looks, you just need to be a little careful and, once you get the hang of it, you, too, can put up eight half-pints of cherries in about 20 minutes.

Good? Good.

To save range space, I sterilized my jars in the oven and simmered the rings and lids. Because I had decided to use the water and lime juice mixture as the canning liquid, so drained the cherries into a pot, added a couple cups of water to make sure that I had enough, and brought the liquid to boil. The cherries themselves were raw packed (that is, put into the jars without heating) and had the boiling liquid added to within a half an inch of the rims. A quick wipe of the rims with a paper towel dipped in the water simmering with the lids, placement of the lids themselves and a good tightening, and the only thing left to do was wait for the canner to come to a good boil. The four pounds of pitted cherries resulted in 7 half-pints of canned fruit. Yum!



Now. What to do with it all? I'm not totally sure. I bet they'd be really great on ice cream, drained or cooked in syrup and with a little Frangelico added in. And I've never eaten cherry crisp, but it sounds great and even better without the commercial pie filling. They could be drained and chopped for muffins, or to add to pancake batter or salads or goodness knows what else. Hmmm...what else?

So that was my evening. What did you do?

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Among the converging deadlines I mentioned in my last post was that of preparing for and executing a family vacation to Wisconsin. Part of the time was spent in a small rented cottage which, although comfortable, boasted the most comprehensive collection of broken and/or incomplete kitchen tools I have ever seen. The second portion of the trip was spent in a tent, looking at more airplanes in more varieties than I thought possible.

The planes were fine, even to an aviation non-enthusiast such as myself, and we found out that even the screaming engines and full afterburners needed for a B-1 Lancer's sixty degree climb almost directly overhead were not enough to wake Entropy Girl from her daily very-late naps. The tent was not fine and probably the less said about it the better. I did mention to Brainiac that he had hit the trifecta of things you don't want when trying to convince the wife that camping is fun: a night of cold, a night of wind and a night of electrical storms.

Now that we're home and I am caught up on the laundry, I thought I'd get back to the topic of cooking and how we're to manage it if we have or want to have, like, a life and stuff. The truth is, I don't know. That is, I know how to manage it for me but not for anyone else. I do know, though, that the only way to figure it out is to get in there and do some cooking.

I became frustrated on our trip after meeting a woman who bragged that she "never, ever cooks". I thought her comment hyperbole until questioning revealed that her kids serve themselves from bags of fruit (fine enough, I guess), bread and peanut butter (um, o.k.) and pre-packaged "complete" lunches (I'm feeling faint) stashed in the fridge. The cupboards contain a variety of commercial snacks and that's that. The kids eat when the kids are hungry out of hand or off paper plates and their mom is pretty pleased that she's found a way to feed them with no effort or engagement whatsoever. I suppose this is, in fact, one way to deal with the issue athough I do kind of feel bad for the kids. They're missing out on so much - the communion of the dinner table, learning the life skills of even basic cooking and food selection, experiencing the lessons in civility that come from standing next to adults and assisting in the preparation and serving of a meal (setting the table is an excellent contribution to the family meal and can be accomplished by kids as young as three) and even the simple enjoyment that comes from learning to appreciate a variety of foods in a variety of preparations. While it's true that their bodies are being fed, is it too cheesy to wonder if their minds, souls and hearts are, too?

But I think that family is an extreme case. Most of us fall somewhere else on the family cooking bell curve and really just need a few simple ideas to make it easier to bring young ones into the kitchen and have everyone make it out again sooner rather than later and with something really yummy to eat (and not too much mess).

For my part, I've discovered that couscous, orzo and pastina are my quick-cooking friends and that there's no way to overestimate the convenience of having pizza dough on hand (notice I did not say pizza crust - my recipe for dough follows and it's insanely easy). I'll also stir fry virtually anything and now regard the exploration of all manner of quiches - both the authentic and faux - as a spiritual path. Then, of course, there are soups and stews and pastas and more kinds of pierogie/empanada/ravili things than I can count.

In other words, fast and easy don't automatically mean junk any more than complicated means good. (As evidence I offer Insalata Capese vs. tete de veau.) Of course, there are lots of hard to make things that are wonderful, and many more dishes that require a score (or more) of ingredients and three days and could break your heart with their awesomeness but these are not what we're talking about here. What we want are some basic dishes that can be varied by season or mood and that are fast and delicious and, above all, real and without unpronounceable contents and packaging that weighs more than the "food" itself.

But how to get started? That's for another post, one full of cookbook recommendations and other suggestions. For now, here's how I make pizza dough. I try to keep at least one pizza's worth in the freezer at all times, because it thaws quickly in the fridge or in panic mode in a bowl of warm water. Like most good things, there are no hard and fast rules:

Put a packet or two teaspoons of yeast along with a pinch of white sugar in a two-cup measure, and fill to two-cups with water that is quite warm, but not hot. Allow to sit for 10-15 minutes so that the yeast comes alive and becomes foamy. In a large bowl, mix together four cups of flour (this can be unbleached white or whole wheat, or a combination of both - I've also added in a bit of chick pea flour with good results) and a teaspoon of table salt. Make a well in the center of the flour and pour in about a quarter cup of the yeast mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon, adding more yeast/water as needed until a dough forms and begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until it is smooth and pliable. Now allow the dough to rest for ten minutes. Divide as desired into however much you need to make pizzas as big as you want and place into freezer bags. Press down to flatten the dough and remove air from the bags.

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