Shaping Families

Saving the Seasons

“Many younger people today want to preserve food, but don’t know how to do it,” write Susanna Meyer and Mary Clemens Meyer, authors and mother/daughter pair of Saving the Seasons: How to Freeze, Can or Dry Almost Anything (Herald Press, 2010). The two women are this week’s guests on Shaping Families.

Listen - Transcript - Study Guide

Potluck

Rebecca Thatcher Murcia

 Saving the Seasons landed on my desk at a particularly propitious time. After ten years of living in Lancaster County, this summer I finally started to shop at farm stands more consistently and became much more aware of both the exquisite taste of our local produce and the short length of some of the seasons. I almost cried when I realized the local strawberry season was over, seemingly a few days after it started back in June.

Saving the Seasons: How to Freeze, Can or Dry Almost Anything, by Mary Clemens Meyer, and Susanna Meyer, mother/daughter team. (Herald Press, 2010) Helpful tips, charts and user-friendly recipes for beginners and experts alike. By Mary Clemens Meyer, Susanna Meyer. $24.99

Rebecca Thatcher Murcia website: Shaping Families’ “Potluck” speaker hosts this site with links to 20 books she’s written for children and young adults, and links to her two blogs about soccer.

ONLINE

• Facebook page for Saving the Seasons. This Facebook page will answer your questions or give guidance quickly on any topic related to food preservation.
• Strawberry Hill Farm. Mary and Ron Meyer specialize in certified organic vegetables and fruit and more.
• CSA. Mary and Ron’s Community Supported Agriculture operation. 
• Grow Pittsburgh. Organization to demonstrate, teach and promote responsible urban food production, where Susanna Meyer works.
• Food In Jars. A blog dedicated to canning, preserving and the “art of putting up.”
• Home Canning. Website by National Center for Home Food Preservation.
• Mother Earth News. Food Preservation pages

BOOK
Mennonite Country-Style Recipes and Kitchen Secrets: The Prize Collection of a Shenandoah Valley Cook, by Esther H. Shank. Many of the recipes were the beginning point for the information on canning and preserving food in Saving the Seasons.

DVDS
“Easy to Preserve” DVDs. Discussions and demonstrations of methods.

Gardening for the Soul

Burton Buller

This week’s Shaping Families program takes me back to the years our family lived in a rural area of central Nebraska. We had moved a large Victorian farm house onto a four acre plot of land owned by my father and restored it to living condition. The house with its pillared porch, stained glass and leaded glass windows, and oak floors was a treasure we saved from destruction to make way for a pivot irrigation system.

Beef Jerky

Rebecca Thatcher Murcia found a recipe in Saving the Seasons that provided a nutritious and road-worthy snack for her teenage sons.

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