I made strawberry jam yesterday. Well, technically, my friend Linda made strawberry jam, and I helped. It was so much fun. SO much fun. We made and canned the jam (a process which technically involves jars), talking about a dozen other things the whole time. I felt so relaxed in her tiny kitchen, and I just wanted to make batch after batch and drag the project out for several hours.

 Some of my best childhood memories are of helping my Mom in the kitchen. She was the kind of parent who made her small assistants feel genuinely wanted, who always had a job that was just my size, even when she was doing something huge like canning vegetables.… Read the rest