Making jelly for fun and flavor

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal & Boerne TX Hill Country Weekly Sept 22, 2010


PHOTO: Rhonda Tracy revives the art of making jelly.


All I know about jelly making came from watching my mom and grandma make it on the farm growing up.

I harbor mixed feelings about the process. Jellymaking for a farmboy meant spending the day bent over in the sun picking strawberries, fighting thorns in the raspberry patch, or peeling piles of apples. Of course the payoff was jars of juicy jelly that tasted like fruit ripped ripe from the tree in the middle of a long Iowa winter.

I tried it once as an adult and ended up with a syrupy mess.

So when Rhonda Tracy offered to teach a class called “Jelly Your Way” I had to find out if there was a secret to making great jelly, or even mediocre jelly.

Her answer surprised me.

“I think it is as simple as following instructions carefully,” she said. That’s not always as easy as it sounds, even for an expert. “I got ahead of myself once, and threw the sugar in the pot at the wrong time and had to start over.”

To avoid the problems, Tracy recommends using the basic Sure-Jell instructions that come on packs of pectin. “You can’t go wrong if you follow those in the right order.”

Tracy (who also happens to hail from the Midwest) had not made jelly in many years. She yearned to try her hand at it again, and has found fellow souls interested in learning the art of canning.

“One thing I found out is that it is exciting,” she said. Exciting? Jelly making is many things - delicious, soothing, thrifty, Zen-like. But exciting? She went on to explain, “It is the ability to be creative as far as combining fruits. I used cranberries and blueberries, and it was the best preserves I had ever made.”

Another reason for making your own jelly is that you end up with an intensity of flavor never found in store brands.

“When you use real fruit, the flavor comes alive,” she said. You can also get creative in using fruits you won’t find on store shelves - agarita, mustang grapes, mesquite beans. “If you are going to eat jelly, it should be more than diluted apple juice or grape juice.”

While savings is not the prime reason people make their own jelly, canning does not have to be expensive. Tracy scrounges her jars from thrift stores. Once you have the equipment and containers, it can all be reused. All you need to add is sugar and juice.

For people such as Tracy’s parents who went through the depression, their goal was to move away from homemade stuff and embrace easier, modern methods. There is an equal and opposite tug now.

“People are going back to natural things,” she explained. “Sure, people are concerned with the economy, but they are also concerned we are losing those old, traditional ways of doing things. That’s our heritage.”

Flavor. Health. Savings. Fun.

“The main thing I tell every class is that this is not hard, it is not dangerous. With one day’s work you can have a cabinet full of homemade stuff. My aunt spends one week’s worth of days canning, and has all she needs for a whole year.”

So why take up jar, lid, and gauze?

“It’s easy,” she said. “If it was that involved, I wouldn’t do it!”

XXX

Rhonda Tracy teaches Jelly Your Way on October 2, 2010, Canning for the Beginner on Oct 16, and Cooking Italian starting Nov 1, at the Vanguard Institute in Boerne. For information or to sign up, click www.clubed.net, or call 830-895-4386.

Cooking on the road

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal & Boerne TX Hill Country Weekly - April 14, 2010




Leaving behind your home kitchen for the lifestyle of a full-time RVer does not mean wandering in the culinary wilderness. Downsizing your cooking space does not mean downsizing the quality of your cooking, according to Didi Ajax.

Ajax is a self-proclaimed “foodie” who created a new Club Ed class called “RV Cooking!”

As project manager for a private company, Ajax has done quite a bit of training. But this is her first attempt at teaching cooking. It came about as a result of her job with a software company. Ajax found herself living in campgrounds and RV parks for months at a time.

“One thing I had to do was go install software and train operators in how to use it,” she said. Over five years and 1000 campgrounds she “got to know a lot of people in the camping arena.”

Ajax always related her hobby of cooking to the nomadic lifestyle. Campers, she discovered, tried to bring the comforts of home to their RV, but had to overcome the limitations of the environment - lack of storage space, limited cooking surfaces, restricted access to ingredients.

“I started looking for tips, tricks, and ideas to make them more comfortable in a mobile cooking environment, and came up with the class to maximize use of the RV environment and still cook things we like to eat.”

The average rig has an oven with two or three burners, and a microwave oven. Her goal is to try to maximize the efficiency of cooking in such a cramped kitchen. She covers all the tricks in her class, but Ajax shares a few of her favorites.

“You don’t have room to travel with all your cooking items,” she explained. “My home kitchen has a gazillion tools, gadgets, and bowls. But on the road you have to minimize and find tools that are multipurpose.”

One of her favorite gadgets is the hand blender. “With the whisk attachment I can make a puree or soup, mix a milkshake, or blend salsa. It is great for this kind of thing.”

Another “go-to gadget” is the lowly toaster oven.

“They are really great. You don’t have to use propane, and as RVers like to eat out, you can use it to reheat leftovers.”

Not all of Ajax’s cooking happens on the road. She also teaches “Butters, Gravies, and Sauces” and “Weekend Brunch.”

“The weekend brunch is just for fun,” she said. “It is actually for folks who want to get up and cook something special when everyone is at home.”

But when you are not at home, you still can have wondrous culinary adventures.

“You can’t do a 9-course meal, but you can certainly pull off a 4 or 5-course meal,” Ajax said, noting she has prepared everything from chicken piccata to home-rolled sushi. “It’s all in the preparation and tools you choose.”

xxx

Didi Ajax will teach “Butters, Gravies, and Sauces” on April 17; “Weekend Brunch” on May 1; and “RV Cooking!” on May 15. Her classes meet at the Silver Sage Corral Senior Activity Center in Bandera. For information or to sign up, click www.clubed.net, or call 830-895-4386.

Club Ed is the Community Education program of the Kerrville Independent School District. Each year, we offer more than 400 classes throughout the Texas Hill Country, along with online courses, business and individual training, and after-school and summer camps. Comment online at clubedcomments.blogspot.com, or follow us on Twitter @clubedtx.

New "center" of learning

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal & Boerne TX Hill Country Weekly - Feb 10, 2010

When you are looking for lifelong learning, there are many places to go, large and not so large.

Of course the Club Ed program covers Kerrville and Boerne, offering hundreds of classes. Go down IH-10 to the east and you will find hundreds more classes hosted by Northside ISD. But don’t forget to dig in unlikely places, like deep in the hills in the small town of Center 

Point.

[PHOTO: Cooking up new ideas, Center Point residents are diving in to classes such as Cake Decorating offered locally in the school’s new community education program. Shown: Sharon Kirby and her Pumpkin Cake. Photo by Shirley Wright]

I had heard that Center Point got its name from being at the “center point” of Texas when measured from east to west. More probable is that the name came from its central location in relation to the neighboring towns of Kerrville, Comfort, Bandera, and Fredericksburg. Now, thanks to Shirley Wright, the unincorporated town is becoming a nexus of lifelong learning with a new program of classes that the locals are embracing with enthusiasm.

When it comes to enthusiasm, Wright has an abundance. “I am having a ball,” she said of setting up and running her program. “My wheels are always turning, trying to think of different things to offer.”

Just started last fall, Center Point put out an ambitious catalog of 30 classes. The 3750 residents of the district could pick from such offerings as computers, martial arts, Spanish, quilting, cooking, and photography, along with some more unexpected topics such as yoga, acting, cake decorating, and bread dough basket weaving. All are held in the buildings of Center Point ISD, a Class 1-A school. Opening existing school facilities to the public has been the cornerstone of the community education concept ever since its introduction in the 1930s.

One innovative project is the new fitness center. Housed in the Center Point schools, the center is open to residents of the district and sports 10 new workout machines. It is available each school day from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Wright - who also wears the hats of librarian and cheerleading coach - enjoys the support of her board and Superintendent Cody Newcomb, as well as the support of the community. Most of her first classes “made” and she is eager to expand the program.

“Even if some of our classes don’t make, at least we are taking steps and offering you the chance to come learn something new,” she said. “I am very excited.”

If you would like to learn more about the Center Point ISD community education program, contact them online at www.cpisd.net or call 830-634-6124.

Lifelong learning has something for everybody, and it should be everywhere. There is lots to learn around every corner.

P.S. Any school district interested in adding a community education program of its own can find out more at www.tcea.com.

XXX

For information on Club Ed or to sign up, click www.clubed.net, or call 830-895-4386.

Club Ed is the Community Education program of the Kerrville Independent School District. Each year, we offer more than 400 classes throughout the Texas Hill Country, along with online courses, business and individual training, and after-school and summer camps. Comment online at clubedcomments.blogspot.com, or follow us on Twitter @clubedtx.