A Recipe for a Bag?

I don't like getting rid of useful things. It gets to be a problem sometimes: the dark side of being good at coming up with things to do with all the leftover wrapping paper, wine corks and egg cartons that life throws at you is ending up perpetually torn between untenable clutter and unending guilt at getting rid of useful things to the point where you seriously consider pouring one out for the last forlorn wedge of cabbage that you had to chuck after it got weird or the armload full of office paper you recycled that was only printed on one side.

If any of that resonated with you, what I'm about to describe will either be exciting or exacerbate the issue: you know those knit-mesh bags that onions, clementines and other produce are often packaged in? A few minutes of crocheting (even if, like me, you're not much of a crocheter) turns them into awesome, reusable produce bags. You can wash produce right in these bags and then hang the whole thing to dry. They are extremely light and compact but strong and adapt to hold a variety of shapes and quantities.

Ingredients:

• one mesh bag (see below for details about different kinds of mesh)
• ~8 yds strong twine (I use #15 or #18 nylon mason's twine)
• crochet hook, size H-J

Types of Mesh

There's a couple of different types of mesh that these bags are made of, and each type has its advantages and disadvantages. These are the three main types you will see:

Knitted Mesh
	This is easily my favorite, as it's the most flexible and adaptable. However, it also requires the most careful construction; the loops that make up the top of the bag can come undone under stress, so it's important to crochet a few rows down from the edge to avoid this.
Woven Mesh
	Harder to come apart than knitted mesh, but much more stiff. Woven mesh will still fold up small, but does not adapt to the shape of its contents as well as knitted mesh or diamond fused mesh.
Fused Mesh
	This type completely avoids the problem of things coming apart, since the whole thing is one piece, but it's also more rigid than the other types of mesh. There are two kinds here: square fused mesh and diamond fused mesh. Diamond fused mesh has many of the same properties as knitted mesh, while square fused mesh is much like woven mesh.

Pattern

Note: Click any stitch name to see an instructional video for it. These are videos I found already on YouTube, rather than ones I made.

• Double Crochet three or four rows down from each opening in the top row.
  
• Join with a slip stitch when you get all the way around.
  
• On the next round, chain two stitches, and do a single crochet into every other stitch all the way around. That's (ch 2, sc) all around for those of you who speak crochet.
  
• Join with a slip stitch again, then cut your twine, draw through the loop and weave in the end.
• Next, add a drawstring. Cut a piece of twine about two feet long and thread it through the gaps made by the skipped stitches.

Update (9/6/14): due to a single quotation mark out of place in my coding, the juicy part of step 3 was not visible until now. Apologies to anyone confused.

Hooray, it's a bag!

Raw-Pack Canning Blueberries in Juice

Yesterday marked the 6th annual Boston Skillshare, and the third that I have been involved with. The last two years, I facilitated workshops on reclaiming yarn, basic auto maintenance, and beginning ukulele. Apparently, I can't stop teaching, even on weekends and vacations. This year, I facilitated a workshop on canning and pickling, by request. I had originally wanted to walk through canning tomatoes, but we have not quite reached the deluge of tomatoes that will be here in a week or two, so I went with blueberries instead. Blueberries are a particularly easy food to can: they don't need to be cooked or cut up ahead of time, and are sufficiently acidic that they don't need to be processed under pressure. I also had the privilege of being introduced to the League of Urban Canners, a group operating in the Boston area (primarily Somerville and Cambridge) to make the most of backyard fruit. If you invite them, they will come to your house, pick the fruit before it falls all over your yard, can it, and give you 10% of what they can. It's a really interesting model that I would love to be involved with if they weren't 2 hours away.

Before we start in with the blueberries, a few words about the role of heat and acidity in safe canning. The whole deal with preserving is to arrest, avoid or carefully control the bacterial and enzymatic breakdown of fresh food. These include such options as freezing, drying, fermenting and canning. Canning preserves food by sealing it away from the air under vacuum and killing any bacteria trapped inside through heat, which works for the vast majority of bacterial species. Clostridium botulinum is a more complicated story. While live C. botulinum are killed at boiling water temperatures, they produce spores which aren't. The spores remain active at that temperature and thrive in an oxygen-deprived environment at between 40°-140°F, (like, say, a can at room temperature) happily producing deadly neurotoxins. The spores can be destroyed at temperatures of 240°F. However, an acidic environment with a pH of <4.6 inhibits these spores, so that the live-bacteria killing 212°F is sufficient. This pH of 4.6 marks the dividing line between high-acid foods, which can be safely processed in a 212°F boiling water bath and low-acid foods, which must be processed using a pressure canner, which can reach temperatures of 240°F.

Blueberries, along with all other berries and the majority of fruits (by the common rather than botanical definition) are classified as high-acid foods, and can be processed in a boiling water bath. The general process for canning berries is as follows:

1. Obtain berries.
2. Wash berries.
3. Load berries into sterilized jars.
4. Cover with hot juice, syrup or water.
5. Seal with lid.
6. Process in a hot water bath for 15-20 minutes.

Magical Spice Blend

I decided this needed its own post, as it will come up over and over again. It has its origins in a "Cajun" blend I ground up at one point to use with some catfish. I had leftover and found myself throwing it onto damn near everything**, partially because I liked it, but also because it conveniently contained many of the spices I find myself reaching for all the time. So when I ran out, I made more. It's evolved somewhat since then, and changes occasionally due to lack of ingredient, but it continues to have a combination of cumin, fennel, thyme, and black and red pepper at its core, with some kind of smoky-flavored element.

As I mentioned, I use it all over the place, but it's particularly good on anything that would go in a burrito, though that may not be very descriptive coming from me: I'll stick just about anything in a burrito.

Grind together in a spice grinder***:
• 1 Tblsp whole cumin seed
• 1 Tblsp whole fennel seed
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp whole black pepper
• 1 tsp red pepper flake OR 1 dry chipotle (not the kind that comes in sauce)
• 1 tsp smoked paprika*
• 1 large or 2 small dried shiitake mushroom*

*I know not everyone keeps these around, and I've put this together without them, but each adds a lot, and are worth digging up. Smoked paprika, which adds a richly smoky, lightly sweet flavor that I'm in love with, can be found at reasonable prices online if you can't find it locally. Dried shiitake mushrooms are a stellar source of natural glutamates, bringing out the savory flavors in even the simplest ingredients. If you have an Asian grocery nearby, you can pick them up there, but otherwise, check online.

**I once had a student who decided to sprinkle some on each and every element of his lunch one day. He declared it particularly good on the apple.

***We keep two separate coffee grinders: one for coffee and one for spices. When I was living on my own, I used the same grinder for coffee and spices, rarely minding a little bleed-over between the two. For those who want their coffee to taste like coffee and their spices to taste like spices, though, you can try a quick wipe with a dry towel or grinding a small amount of something cheap and neutral-flavored (I use a tablespoon or two of oats when I need to do this) to clear the grinder's palette.