One of the things I love about cooking is that despite all the modern advances available to us in the kitchen, so much of it is essentially timeless. Take for example how often you reach for something made of wood in the process of making a meal. I pull out my favorite wooden cutting board at least three times a day and reach for a wooden spoon or spatula all the time.

The only issue with wooden tools is that on occasion, they need a bit of care, particularly in my dry, 20th floor apartment. I used to simply give my wooden utensils and cutting boards a quick wipe with straight mineral oil. About a year ago, I learned a better way from Stephanie at 3191 Miles Apart. Spoon butter (or spoon oil, as she calls it. However, it looks and feels more like butter to me, so that’s what I call it).

It just takes two ingredients to make spoon (or board) butter – mineral oil and natural beeswax*. Put a quart-sized jar in a small saucepan and fill it about a third of the way up with water. Put a quarter pound hunk of beeswax (it smells so lovely) in the jar and gently bring it to a simmer. As it melts, slowly drizzle in the contents of a 16 ounce bottle of mineral oil, until they’ve totally come together. Use a wooden implement to stir it together if it needs a bit of help.

Once the butter is cool to the touch, start smoothing it into your spoons, spatulas, boards and bowls. Let them sit for a couple of hours (or more – sometimes I leave them overnight). When most the butter is absorbed, rub everything down with a clean cloth and return them to normal use.

One of the happy side effects of lubing all your wooden tools with spoon butter is that your hands will feel incredibly soft and well-tended (I think that’s why I like to butter my spoons this time of year, my hands are dry and cracked December through March). I also love how appealingly luminous all the wood looks after it’s been treated.

The spoon butter will keep in a closed jar under the sink or in the pantry for quite some time. It would also make a very nice thing to share. I’ve been imagining a wedding shower gift of a couple sturdy-yet-graceful spoons paired with a small jar of spoon butter and a charming note card with instructions on how to use it. Thoughtful and useful, don’t you think?

*I get my beeswax from Bee Natural in Reading Terminal Market. I don’t remember exactly how much it cost last time I bought it, but I don’t remember it being particularly outrageous.

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Earlier today, I got an email from a reader. After many months of anticipation, she had finally opened a jar of garlic dill pickles she made last summer, using the recipe I posted in August. Only they were far, far too spicy for her. She was afraid that she was going to have to throw out the entire batch.

Upon reading her email, I felt terrible. I never post a recipe that I haven’t tried, tested and truly appreciated. So to hear that someone has made something according to my instructions, only to find it inedible, deflates me. It also got me thinking about the way I approach the creation of the recipe. I write for my taste buds, using the ingredients I have in my kitchen. Thing is, no two palates are exactly alike, so there’s no absolute guarantee that what worked for me will be as delicious for another.

As we head into another canning season (I know so many of you are planning your gardens and signing up for CSA shares with your summer canning in mind), I’d like to encourage a bit more herb and spice exploration. This doesn’t mean that I endorse wild experimentation or grand recipe deviations, as we all know that to keep our canned goods safe, it’s important to keep our acid and sugar levels steady and adhere to the basics of the recipe.

But I do want you to know that it’s okay to gently tweak the spices. If you know that you can’t handle a great deal of heat in your food, please, please reduce the amount of chili or cayenne that the recipe calls for. If you’re a cinnamon fiend, feel free to increase the amount you include in your blueberry jam. Also, keep in mind that a small amount of spice can increase in flavor over time, so if you’re making something in July that you don’t plan on eating until February or March, adjust accordingly. Most of all, remember that you’re making those pickles or that chutney for you, and so the way it tastes should always, always please you.

Additionally, get to know your particular spice rack (they are all different). Sniff and taste your way through the bottles, making sure that you’re familiar with their potency. Toss the things that smell like dirt or nothing at all and replenish the stash before embarking on a big cooking project.

Going forward, I am going to try to write my recipes with this “season to taste” mindset. I will continue to tell you what I did, but I will also include notes at recipe points where variation and adjustments are okay. Because really and truly, my goal here is to show you all that canning is accessible and enjoyable. And if you end up with something you can’t eat, that defeats me.

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Had it not been for the destructive maws of the squash vine borer, my fridge would be bursting with zucchini at the moment. Sadly, all of my squash plants (zucchini and patty pan) succumbed to the evil ministrations of that pesky bug, so my entire summer yield was just a single, 12-inch zucchini. However for those of you who are currently awash in squash, let’s talk a bit about how to preserve that which you can’t possibly eat right now.

This might shock you, but my favorite way to “put up” squash does not include a jar or a trip through a boiling water canner. Nope, when it comes to the summer squashes, I turn to a sturdy grater, zip top bags and my freezer. I roughly grate the zucchini, press out a bit of its liquid and measure it out into two and four cup portions. Packed into bags and labeled, that squash then becomes part of quick breads, soups, pasta sauces and even zucchini fritters all throughout the year.

I’ve always relied on a basic box grater for this type of task, but recently, the nice folks at Microplane got in touch to say that they were making a new Ultra Coarse Grater and did I want to try it out. I said yes, as I’ve been enamored of Microplane products since I first tried their basic rasp about six years ago. They make the best graters and zesters I’ve used.

Almost immediately upon arrival in my kitchen, this new coarse grater became my favorite tool for squash shredding (it also works nicely on potatoes, harder cheeses, carrots and apples). It’s easy to use (a rubber strip keeps it stable on the cutting board), it’s super-sharp and it’s flat design makes it so much simpler to clean than the box grater. I am in grater love.

Happily, I have one of these Ultra Coarse Graters to give away. Leave a comment by Friday, August 21st at 11:59 pm to enter. I’d love to hear your zucchini recipes and preservation tips if you’ve got ‘em!

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On Monday, I wrote a post about canning in vintage jars. Tara left a comment, asking about the safety of these jars. I briefly responded to her question there, but it’s an important enough question that I wanted to make sure that the query and my answer to it got its moment in the sun.

So here it goes. These jars are not recommended by the USDA. The only home canning method endorsed by the USDA is the one that involves Ball/Kerr/Mason jars and the two-part lids. Thing is, Weck jars aren’t endorsed either and they are widely sold today and are an extremely popular style of canning jar in Europe. These vintage bailing wire jars are the functional equivalent of the Weck jars. That fact leads me to extrapolate that if you treat the vintage jars with the same safety precautions that are recommended for the Weck jars (those safety precautions come from the Weck company, not from the USDA) and check the seal after canning by lifting the jar by the lid, your canned item will be just fine. As an added precaution, I only plan on using these vintage jars to can high sugar items like jams and jellies.

The thing to remember is that the government safety precautions are written for the absolute canning novice. They want to make the canning process as safe and idiot-proof as possible. And they’re right to do so, because people have gotten sick from eating poorly canned/preserved foods. While I wouldn’t recommend that you can in vintage jars during your very first canning session, I do think that it’s a viable option as you explore and want to try other styles of jars.

However, just because I’ve offered instructions on how to do this style of canning, I do not intend to endorse other antiquated styles of food preservation. I’m not going to start sealing jars with paraffin wax (despite my father’s happy memories of licking his grandmother’s jam off of wax discs). But I will continue to can in these bailing wire glass jars, using fresh rubber seals and following safe canning procedures (making sure my jars are clean and undamaged, doing the hot water process and then testing the strength/quality of the seal once the jars are cool by lifting the jar by the lid). I like the way they look, I like how sturdy they are and I like that the only waste produced is the rubber seal. All that said, don’t do it if it makes you uncomfortable.

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I finally found the time to make a batch of pickled asparagus tonight. It was my first attempt at pickling and it was satisfyingly easy. I’ll write up the details tomorrow. However, there’s one little tip I wanted to share with you all.

You see, the particular recipe I followed called for the asparagus to be blanched for just ten seconds prior to being packed into the jars. After I retrieved all the asparagus bits from the pot of water, I set aside the now bright green blanching water and poured it into a pitcher to cool down. Tomorrow, when it’s room temperature, I’ll water my houseplants with it, giving them a hit of the nutrients that transferred from the asparagus into the water.

As we all move forward into the heart of the pickling and canning season, this is a great way to reuse that vitamin-rich water (you can also do this when you steam/blanch veggies for dinner).

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