The Spin-o-Meter

The Spin-o-Meter

I am revving back up again, after almost a month of quasi-normalcy, defined primarily by the increased amount of sleep I have gotten each night, dating back to the night that we lost the Doze. Inexplicably, I slept more per night during the last month, than I have at any point since I was still teaching.

I attribute it to a low-grade depression, which allowed me to just wallow under the blankets for long periods of time, in a completely sanctioned mode. The “long periods of time” happened to coincide with that time of the 24-hour daily cycle known as night.

For the manic, nights are forever. The four hours from 7 until 11 generally pass in an eye blink, with the remaining eight hours dragging along like Marley’s chain, only a lot quieter. I pound coffee and cannabis, two elements that mesh with mania, the way gasoline and a lighted match mesh: Something’s bound to happen.

The last five days have been a whirlwind of industry, with me processing the last comprehensive tomato harvest. These tomatoes included a huge vat of Heinz tomatoes, the ones I like to use for thick sauces and salsas. Additionally, just prior to the rain, I stripped the Ace, Evita and Roma tomatoes, leaving me with enough tomatoes to make a difference in Puerto Rico, if I had some way to get them there.

Otherwise, being in the best frame of mind possible for such a venture, I set out to process hot sauce and two different kinds of chunky salsas. This was ground-breaking territory for me, never having ventured into these waters before, not successfully at least, if I remember correctly.  

There may-or may not-have been an effort back in the early years which was both too runny and too vinegary, and most likely ended up being converted into barbecue sauce by the talented Gluten-Free Mama. This time around, I not only had her expert guidance, I had fresh homegrown Anaheim, poblano and jalapeño peppers, along with fresh onions, garlic and cilantro.

All I had to do was figure out how they all went together.

For the layperson, I find it challenging to adequately explain how complex this process is. It’s not like canning tomatoes or even marinara sauce which are immeasurably simpler. Even the catsup, which up until now was my main claim to fame, is relatively simple compared to making salsa.

Again, Gluten-Free Mama not only directed my first two efforts (of three), she donned gloves and entered the ring with me. She roasted and peeled vast quantities of Anaheims and poblanos, and she did the same, albeit separately, with a dozen or so jalapeños, which just happened to come from my own greenhouse. 

Anaheim and poblano peppers

The Anaheims and poblanos came from the Pepper Pot, the garden over on SmallBoy’s spread, where we also grew our eggplant. You would generally use the Anaheims for a dish like Chile Rellenos, and poblanos are similarly mild, but flavorful. So we used these for flavor and the jalapeños for heat.

I wanted the salsa to make my face warm, but stop short of making my eyes water. Sheer perfection.

GF Mama roasted onions and garlic and pulsed them, along with the Anaheims and poblanos through the Vita-Mix, with incremental power bursts, so as not to pulverize one of the chunky components of our salsa. She also prepped the fresh cilantro that HeadSodBuster had furnished for me, earlier that morning in the midst of the mizzle.

Meanwhile, I had blanched and peeled sixty tomatoes, varying from medium to large in size, and then I had diced them. I say that casually, but it was hard on my back and took longer than I like to remember. I then set out to drain as much of the water as I could, prior to assembling the rest of the ingredients.

The first of the two batches, I did a lousy job of this, being content to simply let the tomatoes sit in their respective red colanders, one in each of the two kitchen sinks, and do their thing-drain. The second time I did it right: I placed each of the large colanders into a huge silver bowl, and propped each up on wooden spoons, so that there was air space between the bottom of the colander and the bowl. In this way, there was a place for the water to drain, and I emptied the bowl every fifteen minutes of at least a quarter-cup to a half-cup of water.

That meant that the second batch of salsa was much thicker than the first, but it took time and patience.

Then I had to contend with scoring some jars. Having put up more than twenty gallons of tomato products-so far-I had stretched my jar supply to the limits. I moseyed up to BossLady’s spot, and hit her up for every pint jar she had, and it was almost enough.

In the end I had to choose to fill four quarts, instead of sixteen half-pints, because I did not have enough seals. I did not want to can quarts, necessarily, because I wasn’t sure I wanted to open that much salsa at a time.

Then SmallBoy and Dancing Girl stopped by and I offered them a taste. Based on their reaction, I decided doing quarts actually made more sense. After all, it’s less work for SmallBoy to open the one quart than the four half-pints…

As if processing more than six gallons of hot sauce/salsa over four days was not enough, on the fifth day I had to find a place to store it all. “No problem,” said my spin-o-meter. “We have plenty of room on the dial-we’re nowhere near the red.”

So I emptied the right half of the pantry, put new newspapers down on the shelves, reorganized the entire contents, and ended up putting the canned goods on two shelves that were essentially empty to begin with.

The pantry is one organized mo-fo, though, I will admit, a byproduct of a spinning Markie, bless his pointy little head.

Today, I plan to do nothing more than finish my jigsaw puzzle, not moving from the living room, while watching reruns of the best part of the 2017 World Series.

We all know which part of the World Series that was, my sincerest condolences going out to those fans of LA, nonetheless. I am inordinately cautious about flapping my jaws when it comes to kicking an opponent when it is down.

The baseball gods have long memories.