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It wasn’t particularly hot today in the Boston ‘burbs, but I’ve been feeling peevish all day (nay, week!) and thought tonight would be a great night for a cocktail. Especially since The Oyster is visiting Dad at the office tonight, and I’ve finished up all my household chores — except for mowing the lawn. I’ll try to get to that tomorrow.

Earlier this week I picked up one of those small seedless watermelons at our local market. When I cut into it last night, I was struck by the brilliant pink of the flesh and thought, after tasting it, the melon would make a fine base for a daiquiri. I blended the flesh in our new VitaMix blender, along with a handful of mint from our garden, then chilled the thick juice overnight. I also made a fresh batch of simple syrup, which is one part sugar boiled with one part water. One thing I like to do with simple syrups is flavor them with herbs or spices. For this drink, I could have steeped star anise in the syrup, or even the mint. But I was too tired and didn’t think of it. Next time.

Tonight I blended the melon juice with 4 cups of crushed ice. Then I stirred in one cup of light rum, 1/2 cup of the chilled simple syrup, and a tablespoon of lemon juice into the slurry. A perfect ending to a peevish day!

In India earlier this spring, I found myself on the elusive hunt for the perfect masala dhabba, or spice box. I’ve long been fascinated by the dhabbas of my Indian friends, who reverentially carry them to their stoves to work their magic on a meal. Every dhabba is different: some friends keep dried bay leaves and chilis tucked amongst the packed round tins, others keep theirs austere, with a couple tablespoonfuls of each spice in the round tins.

I had no luck finding the dhabba I wanted while in India. My dream was to find a box with some kind of decorative design hammered into the top lid. In Mumbai, our tour guide took me to several kitchen shops, where I was shown small utilitarian tins with see-through tops. Probably perfect for the modern Mumbai housewife, but I wanted something a little more stylish.

I found this one at Global Flavors this morning, an Indian grocer just over the New Hampshire border. No, it’s not the stylish box I’d envisioned, but it was well made, only $12, and inside it smelled just like the spice markets I’d visited in Kerala. I was sold. There are actually two lids on the box: an inner one, which you can see on the left, then a larger one that tamps down over the whole tin.

Since I own quite the collection of spices, I debated all morning what to store in here: but then it just made sense to me to store my favorite Indian spices in there. Considering I cook a lot of Indian food, now I have my own spice box to carry reverentially to the stove.

(Starting from the bright ochre powder and moving clockwise: turmeric, coriander seed, cumin seed, black mustard seed, Kerala cinnamon bark, green cardamom, and whole black tellicherry pepper in the center.)

This week begins a season of jamming around here. Local strawberries are finally ready for picking, and through July 4, our kitchen takes on an overwhelming sweet smell from macerating berries or jams boiled and ready for canning.

I’ve been making jams, jellies, and all sorts of canned goodies for many years now. It’s one of those kitchen crafts that either impresses people (”That must take up a lot of time!”) or makes them look all kinds of worried (”Aren’t you concerned about botulism?”). Preserving brings to mind of hours spent in a steaming hot kitchen filled with bushels of produce waiting to be “put up” for a long, brutal winter on the prairie. Modern cooks, however, lean toward small batch preserving, working with one or two quarts of top quality produce, maybe fruits you’ve picked at a local u-pick farm or from your own property. For example, last fall I taught my friend Staycee how to make fig jam from the fruits growing in her southern California backyard. It barely takes up any room, and once you do it a couple times, you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about.

The fuss is, naturally, about food poisoning, specifically food-borne botulism, caused by a nerve toxin that can flourish in improperly canned foods. Back in the “old days,” botulism poisoning was much more common than it is today, and also more deadly, with a 50 percent survival rate. The Centers for Disease Control reports that, on average, 145 cases of botulism are reported each year, and of those cases, 15 percent are from food-borne botulism spores. If you’re one of the unlucky few to contract botulism, you only have a 3 to 5 percent chance of not surviving the experience. You can thank modern canning techniques along with better medical care for these excellent odds of surviving your morning toast and jam.

We know so much more about bacteriology and food safety than our grandparents did, so there’s no need to feel anxious as long as you follow directions. I tell new canners to check out the most recent edition of Ball Blue Book of Preserving, which is up-to-date with safety precautions. Today’s jars and lids have safety checks built in, unlike those old lidded jars you see at antique shops. For example, modern lids, like those from Ball, make a reassuring “pop” when they’re lifted out of their boiling water bath, which tells you they’re properly sealed. Sometimes you miss hearing the “pop,” but no worries — you can also look at the lid and see if it’s dimpled down in the middle. If it is, you can be assured your jar is sealed correctly.

Well, I didn’t mean to go off on a tangent like that, so back to the strawberries. Here’s my favorite recipe for strawberry jam. This is the sandwich spread my son likes the best. In the middle of January, it’s so much fun to pop a lid of this stuff and let my nose be tickled by the tangy scent of strawberries. I can close my eyes and it’s June again. The berries stay a brilliant crimson red, too — other recipes, I’ve found, wash out the color of the berries. Do not attempt to double or triple this recipe, although you can make separate batches at once.

Summer Strawberry Jam

This recipe works best with freshly picked strawberries – I’m talking you-just-got-back-picking-them-from-the-farm fresh! Sort through them carefully and discard any berries that aren’t perfectly ripe or that have soft spots on them. Don’t be discouraged by the directions – although the process is spread out over a couple days, it’s actually hands-off time, meaning you’ll spend a minimal amount of time stirring hot jam at the stove.

1.25 lbs. stemmed and quartered strawberries
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed
A candy thermometer or digital thermometer

1. Place the strawberries in a stainless steel pan or ceramic bowl. Pour the sugar over them and stir to combine. Cover the berries with a lid or plastic wrap and let macerate at room temperature for 8 hours, stirring occasionally to ensure the sugar crystals dissolve.

2. Put the berries and the syrup in a stainless steel saucepan, preferably 3-quarts or larger; you may also use a sauté pan. Just make sure it’s not an aluminum pan because the metal will leach into the fruit. Over medium high heat, bring the berries to a boil and cook for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, cool, and cover. Let berries sit at room temperature for 24 hours.

3. Ok, today’s canning day. You’ve read that Ball book, right? If not, remove yourself from the computer and go read it! Follow the instructions for how to prepare your water-bath canner and jars for preserves. For this recipe, you should have 3 sterilized 1/2 pint jars, lids, and screw-on bands ready.

4. Place the berries in a stainless steel saucepan over medium high heat. Clip the candy thermometer to the side of the pan. When the mixture starts to boil, add the lemon juice. As soon as it comes back to the boil, stir constantly, keeping an eye on the thermometer. It should take about 5 minutes for the jam to reach jell stage, which is 220 degrees Fahrenheit. If you don’t have a thermometer, you can test for the stage by letting the jam drip off a spoon – if it “sheets” off, then it’s set. I can also tell when jam is ready by a change in its smell (hard to explain, but I think it’s the smell of the pectin developing) and the sound of the bubbles.

5. Remove the pan from the heat, ladle the jam into the sterilized jars, place lids on top, secure with screw-on bands and put the jars of jam into the water-bath canner, which should be at a boil. Process in the boiling water for five minutes, then remove the jars and place on wire cooling rack. Within a minute or two, you will hear the “pop” from the lids that tells you your jars are properly sealed. Let the jars cool completely, label, remove the bands (not the lids, unless you’re ready to eat) and store your scarlet treasures somewhere cool and dark.

Yield: 2 1/2 half-pints (don’t can the remaining 1/2 pint — put that jam in a bowl, refrigerate, and use within the next week or so)

I’ve been on a bit of a bender with the new cookbooks. A couple weeks ago, I’d heard some good things about Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes: Recipes From a Modern Kitchen Garden by Jeanne Kelley. I’d flipped through it a couple times at Anthropologie, but it just didn’t grab me. Then my dear virtual friend and fellow food writer Monica Bhide picked this cookbook as her top three of the week, and so I had to have it. (If Monica says something is good, who am I to argue?) With a fruitful kitchen garden of my own coupled with a generous share in a local CSA, I know I’ll be cooking a lot from this book.

I’d also had my eye on a cookbook called Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales From a Southern Cook by Martha Hall Foose, who is the executive chef of Viking Cooking School. A couple things grabbed me: first and foremost, it’s southern cooking. Although I come from an unbroken line of born-in-New-England Mayflower descendants, I feel kinship with southern cooks. I adore grits, White Lily flour, okra, field peas, and yes, sweet tea. Not sure why I’ve developed this love for all foods southern, except that — and I’ve discussed this with my southern mother-in-law — I grew up in rural northern New England, where food traditions run pretty deep, as they do down south. I grew up eating church potlucks, biscuits, and homemade pickles and relishes. The other thing that got my attention is the tomato on the cover is stuffed with lady cream peas. I have two 1-lb. bags of dried lady cream peas in my pantry, which I’d like to use over the next few months.

At any rate, I had these two books on my list and so was thinking of running down to New England Mobile Book Fair a/k/a Mom’s Crack Den in Newton Highlands to pick them up. Then I started thinking about the 40-mile round trip (yikes) and how gas is almost $4 a gallon (egads!) and did I really need two more cookbooks (um, yes). Then I thought, “Well, maybe they can send them to me.” What many people don’t realize is Jessica’s Biscuit is the mail order division of New England Mobile Book Fair. A quick check online and I discovered that by spending $50, I could get 1-year subscription to Bon Appetit, a half pound of coffee beans, and free shipping to boot. Not bad! The two cookbooks were 40% off list price, so I added a Chez Panisse cookbook to the order and was good to go. Everything arrived within a week.

This weekend I made the Blackberry Limeade from Foose’s cookbook and it was mighty good. A little sweet, even with half of the simple syrup called for (I’m wise to these southerners with their sweet teeth — I automatically cut the sugar in half for any drink!) but The Oyster and I managed to put away a whole pitcher. Since blackberries aren’t in season up here in Massachusetts, I used a pound of frozen blackberries, which produced plenty of purple juice. I couldn’t find fresh key limes either, so I used Persian limes. The other “odd” ingredients were Kaffir lime leaves, turbinado sugar, and a cardamom pod, which added a subtle flavor to the drink.

My brother Matt is back this week from Iraq. Yesterday we had a little surprise in the yard, a garter snake! Since this is a food blog, Matt is eating the critter. Seriously, no snakes were harmed in the writing (or photographing) of this blog post … the snake was set free in the woods once all the children in the neighborhood got a look.

Now that Matt has left for Spain, I’ll get back to my blogging and cooking.