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We’re in the homestretch.

We’ve been preserving for 5 days now and there’s 5 days to go before the picnic.  Of course work and life are also keeping us busy (a disappointing soccer game for our TFC tonight) but we’re living an extreme balance and making it all work for a week.  I’m writing this at 11.50 after loading the dehydrator with almost 6 pounds of onions (the dried onions will be part of our vegetable crackers).

Dana pulled the dehydrated roasted garlic (which will be turned into garlic powder) and whole hot peppers out of the dryer this afternoon.  I pulled out the slices of green and hot peppers from the dehydrator in the morning.  Things are really starting to hum.

It’s odd that we’ve been cooking for 5 days and are still making the ingredients we will cook with.  Our house is quickly being overtaken with jars (incoming and outgoing), veggies and other supplies.  It’s going to get even more full as some swag starts to roll in through the week and I still haven’t figured out how we will store (and transport) the 1,200-1,500 crackers I hope we get made on Friday night.

I have figured out that we must be mad.

Last night I described the aromoas of our house as being reminiscent of a bath house filled with tomatoes.  A new friend smiled and then pointed out that my description didn’t sound entirely appealing – much like the smell of our house.  We’ve evaporated a lot of tomato water through the air we live in – I’m sure it’s permeated my skin by now.

I also had an absent-minded moment in the morning when I sampled the wrong dehydrated pepper.  The tiniest flake of dried pepper lit my mouth for 2-3 hours (to be clear, I adore hot stuff – this is simply crazy hot).  I’ll add a bit more care the next time I blindly grasp for a taste of something in my own kitchen at 5AM.  This is proof-positive that I’ve learned something today.

I’m absolutely smitten with the garlic.  We’ll partially freeze it right before making our crackers and then pulverize it with a blender.  The slow dehydration really brings out a sweetness in it that can’t be matched – something that has also happened with our carrots and will transform our onions as well.  Tempted to find a bunch of celeriac to make a mirefois cracker.

That’s the recap for today.  I should mention that if the writing sounds choppy, it likely is.  We’re largely going on adrenalin these days and haven’t had much of a sit down and chill for about 2 weeks.  If all goes well we should have a really chill day on Saturday before the big day that will require rested minds and bodies.