Book-Signing with Eugenia Bone

On Saturday I had tea with the charming Eugenia Bone, author of Well Preserved: recipes and techniques for putting up small batches of seasonal foods. Well, not just me, me and about 40 other mostly middle-aged women--the only male was the waiter.

Eugenia talked about "your kitchen's eco-system," about the joy of excavating all our commercially canned and prepared foods, tossing them out, and replacing them with local, seasonal, home-canned items that will provide the ingredients needed for a meal later in the year and that represent our own palates--that's key.

She's a lively, expressive speaker, who uses a lot of hand gestures (she's Italian, after all, although I can't figure out her cute little turned-up nose, since, being totally Italian myself, I've sported somewhat of a honker my whole life--must be from her non-Italian mother's side?). Her father, Ed Giobbi, is the acclaimed cook-book author and artist who, she tells us, really influenced her canning future. She grew-up watching him can tuna, tomatoes, olives, whatever was in season and that he could wrestle into their kitchen. The book is full of anecdotes of growing up in her Italian home.

Anyway, she really makes you want to can.

Eugenia's talk was given at Upstairs at the Square in Harvard Square. Guests were served tea and a plate of the most delicious, house-made morsels and comestibles--things like huckleberry preserves, ginger butter cookies and a nibble of smoked salmon on a tiny brioche--yummmmm! Everyone at the tea left with Eugenia's book and feeling well-fortified to face the gray Cambridge afternoon.

If you'd like more canning inspiration read how a few local folks do it in my Summer 2009 article in edibleBOSTON magazine: "Everything Old is New Again"
http://www.ediblecommunities.com/boston/summer-2009/everything-old-is-new-again.htm

Happy canning!