Remembering Aunt Myrtle's Preserves and Donald Ziraldo's Icewine on...
August 09 2017
I first started to get interested in canning in the mid seventies, during my apprenticeship in cooking. My great Aunt Myrtle led me down the back stairs of her house, just south of the city limits in Toronto. It was a hot August day and I felt the heat leaving my body as I descended the stairs to the cool depths below. We stood amongst the wooden shelves loaded with mason jars of this year’s production of jams and pickles. I was awestruck by the display. Everything looked so delicious and precious. There in suspended animation, like bottled sunshine, to later grace the table on a dreary February night, stood row after row of mason jars.