July 20, 2011: My friend Brook Hurst of LearnToPreserve.com offered a canning class to the women at Jubilee Women's Center. We'd both volunteered before to cook a community meal, so I tagged along to assist at the class, too.
Jubilee provides "safe, affordable and supportive community housing in Seattle and a program that helps single women transition out of homelessness and into independent living."
Each of the women in the class had their own prep station, helpfully color-coded with Brook's set of matching knives and flexible cutting boards.
Canning tools at the ready...
Ball had donated a set of canning supplies so after Brook taught the class, the women would have the tools to continue to can.
While there are occasional community meals and some resources provided for the women, they are still responsible for things like food expenses. Being able to preserve food when it's in season and or on sale might help keep their overall food bill down.
Everyone got to work chopping. Brook pointed out some tips for fruit selection, like the fact that underripe fruit is often better for preserving then overripe.
We didn't realize there wasn't a juicer in the kitchen, but one of the residents lent us her own, and the women made quick work of the lemons called for in the recipe.
Everyone took a turn stirring in the sugar.
Here Brook did a swap out - ideally the apricots should sit in the sugar for several hours or overnight. So she brought in some pre-macerated apricots and starting the cooking process in this excellent, wide, shallow, and heavy copper pot she brought.
And it cooked!
The residents took turns stirring (always one direction to minimize incorporating too much air) and scraping off the foam (which was not wasted - most folks took a taste).
Each of the women took a turn filling their jar and getting the sense of how full the jars should be.
Crucial, but frequently forgotten by new canners: wiping off the rim of the jar.
The lids were put on and the jars were processed in the water bath.
The class went a little long, but those who were able to stay got to hear the satisfying PING of some of the jars as they sealed.
And each class attendee got her own jar of apricot jam.
Follow-up! Brook returned to in September 2011 to teach another preserving class (pickles) and I tagged along again. We had another great evening, and learned that one of the residents had canned with her family after Brook's July class. She told us she and her family had picked blackberries and used apples from the yard as pectin to make some blackberry preserves. It was really cool to hear that and Brook and I can't wait to go back again to see what they did after the pickle class! Brook is planning some fall-focused preserves for the next visit.
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