About
Welcome to Well Preserved!
There are two of us who maintain this site – one is a professional designer and the other is not. Some of her designs are featured in your kitchen and some of his ideas on food may help influence yours.
The idea of this blog is to share some of our passions – we are not professional chefs (nor close to it). We are passionate about food – cooking, buying, tasting, sharing and packaging it. We will share many angles of food on this site – all of it is very anecdotal and based on our experiences.
We will share our experiences with food – ranging from a passion for hole-in-the-wall cafeteria style service restaurants through the supposed best in the world. We will also share our own experiences of cooking, jarring, pickling and hunting for our own food. The writing will have a bias that all things are new though many of you will know much of what we share – it is our hope to provide some inspiration, ideas or resources that you may enjoy or may help influence your own experience.
The vision for this site is to form a gathering place for those wanting to be inspired as well as those looking for inspiration. I hope that readers will add to the discussions, sites and ideas. Share your candid feedback, extend the respect of the dining room to the other guests and you are welcome to join the conversation!
Dana and Joel (the main blog that is updated is at the top under Home).
Comments
thankyou for speaking to me about Scotland, my mother’s home place. I keep getting google alerts so came to your web site and love your aesthetic (particularly the jam pot) and so I have been interested to find you. I have been making preserves for 20 years and still love it. thanks for putting our two videos on your site to share.
off to the pots -we are making a Silver Lime & Ginger marmalade today.
Best wishes,
June Taylor.
Hey Joel! Too weird that I found your blog completely randomly and added you simply because I liked what you had to say without any idea it was you guys. Go figure! Good peops are ez to find.
Laughing – that is simply way too odd and way too wierd and fantastic all at once! Glad to have you on board – thanks for joining up and for the comment – great to find more great peops! j
HI Guys,
I’d love to be a part of your website (comment-wise) or at chat with you. I love food too and have always been in close touch with it — to explain that, it goes back to home ec. in grade 8 — I aced that course and then aced gr. 9 home ec., also food service mgmt. in gr. 13, and every time I took a career assessment in school, the first category that came up was food. And so on to university where I took a Nutrition degree and aced that too. Tried a dietetic internship and failed miserably, but realized I need to connect with food in person, so went to George Brown for Pastry Arts and aced that too.
So as you can see I’m totally into food too and especially love old recipes of any type. I collect cookbooks and love recipes that allow me to create things that you can buy in the store but hardly ever make at home — like lollipops, or pickles or jams or chocolate pudding from scratch (like Jello, but cooked) and so on…….!
Hope to hear from you and let me know how to join up or add your blog to facebook or wherever I can b/c I’m tech illiterate to a certain degree. I love to chat via email and FB, but other than that I am a Luddite. (see font result on FB)
Dawn
Dawn,
Thanks so much for the comment – love your passion and didn’t know about so much of your food past!
Dana and I are working on some kind of solution to involve others and will make an announcement on the site in coming weeks – we’re trying to work out a few things to make it technically simple and don’t want to make it overbearing for other who want to be involved. We’d certainly love to learn from your tonne of experience and love the idea of knowing more about lollipops!!!
Smiles, thanks for the post – I’ll make sure you know when we get our acts together for others to join in and if you’re interested then we’d be thrilled.
j
Hi Joel,
After writing to you, all my past food adventures since college have come back to me…so if you don’t mind, here goes:
For the past 10-ish years, I’ve been baking and cooking up a storm and have sold my wares in various places: Xmas cookies, fruitcake, jams and salsa to friends and co-workers (as munchies or Xmas gifts); sold cookie mixes and Xmas baking at local craft sales; sold buttertarts, candy and “killer” jams at the Markham farmer’s market; and have entered many breads, cakes, pastries, cookies and preserved stuff in the Markham fair — resulting in many ribbons!
I have also been a veggie gardener for many years and love making things with what we can’t eat, and also entering veggies in the Fair too. My best memory from the fair is winning 1st place for my Yukon Gold potatoes, b/c I had never grown a potato in my life! 
Last year’s garden provided a bounty of produce and I was very happy to turn our pears and tomatoes into “Pie in a jar”, bruschetta and pizza sauce. And I still have tomatoes in the freezer awaiting their rebirth as ketchup.
I also got together with my sister and made dill pickles — which also earned a 1st place ribbon at the fair after not making them for a long time. Too funny!
Anyway, I just wanted to share what I’ve been up to in food and that the Markham fair is a blast b/c I may not be the best at everything, but sometimes I do turn up a winner….:)
Hope you are both keeping well and look forward to some more food!
Dawn
Hi Dana:
Have been meaning to do this for some time now. I love your blog. Entertaining. Informative. Well designed (that’s no surprise!) and well worth the time to visit. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Joel,
It was fun meeting you and your Dad at Everdale yesterday. I really like your website and have already found a couple of recipes I’d like to try (slow-roasted tomatoes and butterscotch peaches). In case you couldn’t find them, here are the blogs that I was mentioning…
The Greening of Gavin…
http://www.greeningofgavin.com/
and
These Days in French Life…
http://frenchtoastfrance.blogspot.com/
All the best,
Elaine
Hey Joel & Dana!
Great to finally meet you the other night at our stick party. We have heard all about you preserving adventures through Kerry. Look forward to reading the blog and the archives!
Glad you enjoyed the dill beans and the garlic!
See you soon!
Patrick & Jessie
Hi Joel & Dana,
Gosh what a funny coincidence it is. I am passionate about canning and food preservation, the social history of food, and oddly enough, contemporary design too. I figured it was time I got with the program and started blogging about my own wonderous discoveries and odd experiments, and hopefully encounter like-minded souls out there. Alas, my first choice for blog title: “Well Preserved” is unavailable but my on-line wanderings have brought me here. And by happiest of coincidences, I see you also enjoy the Royal Winter Agricultural Fair. On that I must confess straightaway that not a one!! of my entries in the Preserves competition took a ribbon this year (sigh). But I must run – I have 16 pounds of green tomatoes on my counter threatening to turn red before I transform them in my non-prize-winning “green tomato and apple chutney”.
Regards,
Betsy
Dear Well Preserved
perhaps you can help me?
I have been searching in Canada(London, Ontario to be exact) for those Zena Star potato peelers-and do you think I can find a Canadian.Ontario dealer? NOT!!!!! what a pain it has been for something that should be so simple with the internet and all.
You mentioned them on your website-do you know where I can get a bunch of them in Canada-Ontario?
Your help would be greatly appreciated
cheers
JIM
Hey there JIM,
How frustrating!
Canadian Tire has a knockoff that may be worth a try – http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/browse/8/KitchenBath/GadgetsAccessories/Gadgets/PRD~0423158P/1-Touch%2BPower%2BBlade%2BPeeler.jsp – though it`s $15 and there`s a lot more plastic.
There is also a booth on the second floor of the St Lawrence Market in Toronto which carry the peeler. It`s in the middle of the market, near Future Bakery and is the only booth of it`s kind (it is actually a store which has a tonne of cooking supplies and is one-of-a-kind). Next time I go I will check for a name.
I`ll take a look next time I`m there (before XMas) and see if I can get any clues. Restaurant supply stores may also be a place to start. I will ask around and update in a few weeks and let you know what I find.
Greetings Jim and Joel,
Jim contacted me (in error because I am not the author of this blog) about your post re Zena Star peeler. He’s been having trouble finding it in Ontario. I was intrigued myself and googled “Zena peeler Toronto”. I thought for sure I’d find some stripper named Zena, but no, my luck held and and the item has been located. At Swipe, a fab shop at 401 Richmond St West (near Spadina). They have a little write up rating it and so I’ve take the liberty of cutting and pasting this bit from their Kitchenware Archives, Feb 7, 2009 entry. See http://www.swipe.com/?p=870.
“Zena Star Classic Peeler
✍1947: Alfred Neweczeral, Honoured with a postal stamp in Switzerland in 2003, the ubiquitous Zena peeler combines simplicity of manufacture with near perfect functionality. Thus the item can be manufactured in Switzerland and still be competitively priced. Watch the Food Network™ and you’ll generally be able to tell the professional chef from the celebrity by keeping a eye out for this tool”
Zena Star Classic Peeler: $12.95
_________________________________
To purchase any of the products or titles mentioned here, please visit our downtown Toronto location, call us toll-free at 1-800-56-swipe or e-mail us at: info@swipe.com.
Hope this helps everyone.
Awesome Betsy – this is in fact where we got ours originally. Swipe is an awesome design store (the peeler is a design icon) and wasnt sure they would still have them. As I recall they were cheaper at the Market but if swipe has them in stock that is a better guarantee than my memory!
Thanks so much for sharing, it is time to head back to Swipe for a visit!
I share your passion on sous vide cooking and think you have done a wonderful job in demonstrating the real essence of sous vide cooking.
Keep it up!
Hi Joel,
Good to meet you and your wife at the pre Terroir party.
Are you attending Terroir on march 2?
Cool blog!
lulu
416 410 KIDS
Looks like we’re on a similar wavelength! Looking forward to reading more.
I just found yoru blog today and i love it! great read, well-written and the pics are on point. look forward to flipping thru yoru archives later on tonight
-jay
Welcome Jay – thanks for the kind words, glad to have you aboard!
Absolutely unrelated to the blog – but my husband and I are taking a road trip in July from Ann Arbor to the the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. You seem to be into the same sorts of food, drink, and site-seeing that we are, so I was wondering if you could recommend anything to see/do/eat along the 401 or 403!
Hi Joel and Dana,
My name is Anneliese and I’m a marketing assistant at Simon and Schuster Canada.
I maintain a database of foodies/food bloggers that we send finished copies of cookbooks and food related novels to and I’d love to add your blog to my database.
If this is something that interests you please get in touch with me with your email and mailing address.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Best,
Anneliese
Thanks Anneliese,
awesome news. Have sent our details seperate – hopefully we can bring some great stuff to our readers together.
For benefit of all, know that anything we review has two conditions:
1) We personally love it.
2) We`ll let you know if it was comp`d.
If it`s posted here, we love it and we use it.
Joel
Hi Joel,
First, great blog/site. I really enjoy the content.
I also follow a blog that you may find interesting (I couldn’t find a contact form, so I’m posting this to the comments).
The blog is called ‘The Locavore Hunter’ by Jack(son) Landers
http://rule-303.blogspot.com/
He’s big into conservation and his family decided not to consume any ‘processed’ meat anymore. His latest focus is on the hunting/using invasive or ‘alien’ species that threaten natural populations.
It is, predominantly, a hunting blog – just with a different focus.
Well, it’s back to reading the archives and waiting for some more great posts!
Genetically modified food is our future. Actually, we already eat a lot of it. Is it safe?
“- Media are invited to join Monsanto and other industry stakeholders for the official Grand Opening of the new, state-of-the-art Monsanto Canada Breeding Centre, located adjacent to Monsanto’s existing Canadian Head Office at the University of Manitoba’s Smartpark.Tues, November 23, 201010:30 am to 1:00 pm (lunch provided)”
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Monsanto-Canada-Breeding-Centre-Grand-Opening-1354370.htm
Um… I’d skip the lunch.
GMO crops are the main contributing factor in Colony Collapse Disorder which is decimating bee populations worldwide. We’re in for a future of eating gruel if we don’t do something fast. The mainstream media, big business and governments must stop whitewashing GMO science. http://www.energygrid.com/ecology/2010/03po-colonycollapse.html
Somebody from the media needs to crash this party and ask the tough questions!
Need motivation? Check these out:
American Academy of Environmental Medicine calls for immediate moratorium: http://www.aaemonline.org/gmopost.html
The World According to Monsanto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8hFuuDAZjk
David vs. Monsanto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E42ndfjnP1g&feature=fvst
The Future of Food: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Y_QH_c70s
Food, Inc.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eKYyD14d_0&feature=fvw
Vanishing of the Bees: http://www.vanishingbees.com/
RoundUp causes cancer: http://www.organicconsumers.org/Monsanto/glyphocancer.cfm
Join the protest outside the event.
Please tell a friend.
Hey guys,
I just got my prize package in the mail from the pimp your preserve contest. Made my day! Awesome shirt and I love the buttons!
I agree with Betty Monsanto is a scourge do not use their seeds or eat their foods. They take advantage of people…just look what they did in India.
I’m wondering if anyone knows where to get Tattler canning lids in Ontario (Toronto specifically)? I can find them online, but I’d rather not ship them. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much, this blog is a great resource!
Thanks so much Jake – I don`t know off hand but will also post this on our facebook group and update if we hear
sweet! thanks.
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I am in dire need of help with creating larger recipes of jams. I have been testing recipes using the standard home size recipe that yields about 30-40 ounces per batch and they set up beautifully. However, I now need to be able to make larger batches, maybe 3-4x that size at one time. Nothing I do is getting these batches to set up correctly. I have tried CERTO, Sure Jel, and a few varieties from Pacific Pectin which I found online (powdered forms and one they make that is reconstituted to mimic CERTO liquid). I am using large stainless pots, cooking to 220, testing with frozen spoons for gelling….all the methods that I have read that are supposed to work for the smaller batches. I know so many resources say “don’t double your batch” which OK I can understand that for home use, but I need to figure it out for production purposes in the small company I now work for. It doesn’t have to be MASS production. We aren’t pumping jam into jars. It’s still the same “small batch” method…just not as small as a normal home recipe (cooking over a hot stove, water bath canning,etc). WHat is the secret to making larger batches? WHy won’t a double or triple batch set up? Our largest pot is about 12 qt at this time and the largest batch I’ve cooked bubbles up to about 60% full. I have a brand new digital probe thermometer that I’ve tested against the normal candy thermometer you can buy at most kitchen stores. They both are reading within 1-2 degrees of each other. I have been told that pectin reaches it’s activation point at 220 and “cannot be over cooked” (according to a technician at Pacific Pectin), although I take the batch off the heat once I feel like it’s reached the temp and a spoon test shows signs of gelling. Once it cools to 175-180, it then reaches it’s set point and should not be reheated and expect it to set again. I don’t have a BRIX or pH meter but if small batches set, you’d think the balance is there when you use the same proportions in the 2x-3x recipe. We’d like to keep the cooking to a minimum in order to achieve the fresh flavors in the spreads. We just can’t seem to get a good set in the larger batches. What is the trick? If other companies can make larger batches, what are they doing that I am not? I am so frustrated and waisting so much money with all of these trials…I’m at my wits end. I don’t want to send these products to copackers but if that’s all I can do…then I guess that will happen.
I had to reach out to those of you who might have some knowledge about this. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help. I am in a time crunch now and I need answers. I feel like a total failure at this point.
Do I have to adjust the recipes in other ways in order to achieve a good set? I don’t want thick gelatinous goo. I don’t want a saucy mess either.
Ang
Ang,
the best article I know of to help you know what’s going ‘wrong’ is from Fooe in Jars: http://www.foodinjars.com/2011/01/canning-101-why-you-shouldnt-double-batches-of-jam/
I think you’ll find a lot of difficulty taking a ‘normal’ recipe and increasing it – I, like Marisa, would reccomend you just make 3 or 4 regular batches – it won’t take that much longer (you can use multiple pots or cook batch 2 while batch 1 is processing.
Alternately you may look up recipes specific for larger portions.
I’m afraid I haven’t made large batches and find myself making smaller ones each year so I don’t have a lot of direct experience that can help. I can imagine the frusration though…
You could also experiment with a small amount of agar but wouldn’t know te ratios…
Runny jam is great for baking, brunch and beverages…
hi Angela,
If you’re doing quick cook jams with certo-type pectins, then evaporation is not what you want. There are – you probably know this already- a) traditional slow cooked jams with no added commercial pectin, that are cooked down slowly and the thickening occurs primarily thru evaporation, not thru gelation (which is a chemical process); and b) quick cook jams, typically made with added pectin, that are essentially hydro-colloidal suspensions involving acid, sugar and pectin all in the right proportion at the right temperature. The former have a distinctly caramelized, brownish colour and taste; the latter aim to retain the bright, fresh fruit colours and taste – with just enough cooking to reach the gel point and no evaporation.
The certo-type pectins are made for small batch use at home. You will run into trouble with them when using in larger batches because:
a) they are taking too long to reach the right temp – by which time you’ve wrecked the pectin; and/or
b) you’ve got the wrong proportion of fruit, to added acid (if any), to sugar to pectin.
The problem is probably multi-fold. Having experienced these problems myself, I had better luck using:
- a steam jacketed pot (found in large commercial kitchens) that heat evenly on 3 sides – allowing for the batch to brought to the right temp in shorter time than with conventional cooking pots;
- professional/processing pectins. These are calibrated to work with different pH, with lower sugar than the certo-type products, and have a higher tolerance for cook temp and are thermo-reversible (good for baking applications).
Do some research online this weekend into pectin manufacturers, and start calling them Monday. Their sales reps should be knowledgeable enough to identify some pectins that might work. Try several manufacturers since there are hundreds of different pectins, all with slightly different formulations. Over the weekend, can you transfer your raw ingredients into weight? They will want it that way since the correct pectin quantity will depend on the weight of other ingredients. They may ask for this data on an excell spread sheet so be prepared.
Do you have a decent pH meter? I mean one that measures with an accuracy of 0.01-0.02, and has a temperature compensation feature? These will set you back $600+ but you will need one. Try Canadawide Scientific. Again, call them Monday – they can courier overnight from Quebec (if you are in Canada).
I’m not sure where you are located, but is there a food produce development office in your area that can help you with this? Some culinary colleges have; in the US the resources for fledgling processor entrepreneurs are pretty good – usually found thru universities – and they do it for less$$$.
Getting all this worked out will take time. If you are really really up against a delivery deadline, (if it were me), abandon your current approach. Do in small batches (no more than double batch) to get it done, and when you’ve less panicky, sort out these issues here.
Hope this helps.
Betsy
Joel
I’ll be picking Wild Ginger this week or next depending on what it looks like. Want to do a segment ?
MB
Matt,
As much as I would love to I think it could be tough logistically – work (i.e. the daytime job) is pretty busy right now… Tough to cover it if I’m not there; unless you can think of any ideas? If so, my direct email is weaarewellpreserved (a) elevenideas.ca – I’d love to work with it and open to the idea of doing pieces with others.
Joel
I can’t find a link to your recipes on your new site! Where is it?
Debbie,
it was with good reason – they were scattered in posts as we were building it out. The menu/ links have just been launched today! You’ll find recipes under cooking or preserving depending what you are looking for (they are both broken down further).
Let us know what you think of the menu/ navigation – hope it’s useful! Here’s a link to the announcement today:
http://wellpreserved.ca/2012/05/10/launching-our-menu-system/