I have reached the stage of canning season where I am simultaneously producing my finest work and running on fumes. Both things are true. Look at these jars.
I mean, LOOK at them. That's not "food in a jar," that's stained glass. That's a jar you'd find in a museum gift shop with a little placard that says "Autumn Harvest, Minnesota School, Artist Unknown." Reds and greens and yellows all backlit and glowing like the world's spiciest church window. I held one up to the light and actually gasped. At my own pickles. I have become a person who gasps at her own pickles.
And YET. Somewhere around jar number nine, a switch flips. The switch that says "this is a beautiful act of preserving my harvest and honoring the earth's bounty" quietly clicks over to "if I see one more pepper I am going to become a pepper." There is no in-between. One minute you're an artist. The next minute you're just a woman standing at a counter, hands stained red, wondering if the peppers multiplied when she wasn't looking. (They did. They absolutely did.)
So here's where we're at: gorgeous, glowing, genuinely impressive jars of pickled peppers, made by a woman who loves this life fiercely and has ALSO started having quiet negotiations with her garden along the lines of "okay but are we SURE about next year's pepper count." The peppers, for the record, are not sorry. The peppers have never been sorry about anything in their lives.
Give it a few weeks in the brine and these will be perfect on sandwiches, tacos, burgers, or straight out of the jar at 9pm standing in front of the open fridge, no judgment. They earned the stained-glass treatment. I earned a nap. We're both getting what we deserve.
Tired hands, full pantry, grateful heart. In that order, currently.
— Granny
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