The Great Wall…of preserves
We had planned to continue posts on making your own tomato sauce today – instead we are going to take a small detour. We did some redecorating this weekend and I am so excited with the results that I had to share – our preserves finally have a home!
These Ikea shelves (there are 2, stacked on top of each other) are about 9 feet high. There are currently 36 batches of our own preserves on the shelves. 10 of the 12 shelves with full jars feature the results of our hard work – an 11th contains purchased dried foods and the 12th is reserved for house guests – more than 20 jars prepared by others that we`ve acquired over the year.
I lost count – there are around 275-300 jars on the shelves. This includes only 15 of the 70+ jars of tomato sauce that we store in Markham and doesn`t include any of our frozen goodies (peppers, grab, garlic scape pesto).
The wall is well hidden from the sun and was, partially, inspired by the wall at Gilead. I have done my research and spoken with several who display their preserves in plain sight (as oposed to hiding them in a dark place) and am genuinely comfortable that they will thrive in this location.
It’s a massive improvement from keeping them in boxes under a shelf – when I needed a jar of jam I would have to take most of the boxes off the shelf, remove all of the cookbooks and fill the kitchen with piles of cardboard. They also look a lot nicer.
It`s been a great year of preserving so far (I did 2 tiny batches last night) and I`m sure there`s more to come!
Comments
Very impressive Joel!
Awesome! I think chef at home, Michael Smith, would approve!
this looks lovely. i love the display, and man, what a collection!
Thanks Tigress – and all of you for the nice words… we are pretty smitten with the wall (and the love from all yall)
I was fortunate enough to see the shelves in person on Monday evening. What an impressive sight!!! Enough to make JK at Gillead envious. I could not even sneak a jar out as Dana and Joel watched my every move when I neared the shelves.
It is pretty incredible.
Joel & Dana your raspberry/jalapeno jam was awesome and the blueberry/maple preserves outstanding. Thanks for the invite and the catch up!
This looks beautiful! It’s really a great way to turn storage into art.
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