Plate to Plate

One of the many, many, perhaps innumerable, perks of freelancing is being able to squish your work hours into digestible and useful little chunks. This comes in handy especially when you want to actually get something done in the middle of the day. You know, during business hours?

Sometimes I wonder how I ever accomplished anything before quitting the world of nine-to-five. (Or ten-to-six, as the case may be.) And then I remember that I lived in Manhattan, where stores are open all night and events are planned accommodatingly around the schedules of most working people.

Not so here in the greater Williamstown-North Adams metro area. (Ha-ha.) Here, events are planned accommodatingly around the schedules of wealthy stay-at-home moms, arts-advocate retirees, and students. In other words, things take place at stupid times, in the middle of the day. For example, Dan and I went to see the classic Japanese film Ugetsu a few weeks ago at The Clark, at 4 PM, and were somewhat surprised to find ourselves the only two brown-haired patrons in a sea of powdery gray and silver. We felt fleeting terror at the prospect of actually having to live around here, among the elderly and trust-funded, for more than a handful of years, but that feeling subsided quickly once the growing season began and we started making the weekly trek down to Caretaker Farm for our CSA pick-up.

And it was Caretaker who organized this week’s free, middle-of-the-day activity that, thanks to my flexible schedule (or, more realistically, my lack of paying work), I was able to attend. The subject at hand? Pickling Demystified.

The workshop wasn’t actually called Pickling Demystified, but it might as well have been. Our instructor, Dianne Lamb, works as a Nutrition & Food Specialist with the University of Vermont Extension in Bennington. In clear, simple language, and with much enthusiasm, she essentially shined a big bright light on what, to me, had been a somewhat mysterious and intimidating process — canning and pickling. By the end of my two hours in the Caretaker kitchen, I’d canned some dilly beans, learned a new technique for making yogurt at home (more on that later), and received an offer for a personal lesson on making kimchee.

Plus, I took pictures. Here’s a glimpse at what went on.

See the rest at my Flickr page »