A few years ago, I discovered I actually like tomatoes. It took me a few years to totally come around on them (for awhile I thought it was just “orange” ones I liked), and the moment I did is totally my friend Corrine’s fault. (Thanks, Corrine!)

On Tuesday I’ll be taking a class on how to can tomatoes. I’m actually not sure I really need it, since my handy “Ball Book of Preserving”:http://www.metacookbook.com/permalink/ball-book-of-home-preserving.html makes it seem pretty damn easy. However, the class is fairly inexpensive, I’ll get a chance to see Logan Square Kitchen in person, and I’ll get to meet some people who are also interested in canning. So, why not?

Putting up tomatoes was a big goal for me this year, earlier in the year. Not big enough to make it on the special list of goals I made for my birthday, but pretty big. However, I just don’t think I’m going to do much of it.

Unfortunately, it’s beginning to look like I’m not going to preserve much food this year at all. I can’t say I’m thrilled about this. Thrilled or not, it’s true.

Some of it is the hog. The hog doesn’t take up a huge amount of space in the freezers, but it takes up some space. Some of it is that I overdid it last year. It’s finally corn season again, possibly corn season is even almost over, and I still have last year’s corn in the freezer. (As an example. It’s not the only thing I overdid it on.)

That may even be most of it. I’m not entirely sure. I will say that it’s a bit disheartening to see a bunch of corn in my freezer (and, true, it’s only 2 – 3 bags at this point) when it’s time to be laying in more corn. I feel as if Bill & I just didn’t cook enough. I didn’t make enough jam in the off-season (don’t ask about how many berries are in there) and so forth.

Almost eight months ago, I wrote a tweet saying my pantry was finally starting to look like I’m the kind of cook I want to be. Amazingly, it still looks that way. So does my freezer. Maybe that’s part of the problem.

And, it’s weird. As evidenced by “Wednesday”:http://metacookbook.com/archives/280-Surprise!-Dinner-was-delicious!.html cooking is still happening, and my skills are still improving. So what happened? Did I just go so overboard last year that it made this year look awful?

Is it just that too much is going on this year? I consider that it might be that. This year’s been a hugely busy one for me, especially with the time-consuming additions of running the market & planning the wedding. You all can see it in the blog, even.

I don’t know. And, to be honest? I’m not thrilled with how the year is turning out with regards to food, but I’m okay with it. Life doesn’t always go according to plan. And there will be many years for figuring out food. There’s so much to figure out, after all! Maybe instead of being the year that I learn how to preserve a ton of tomatoes, it’ll turn out to be the year that I figure out how to make beans that aren’t crunchy. Or maybe it will be the year I learn how to pair food with beer (thanks, Theresa!).

Or maybe it’s just going to be a low-food learning year. That’s okay. This blog was conceived in a fit of madness about how long it would be going anyway (right now, we’re probably looking at 15 – 20 years before we’re “allowed” to buy a new cookbook – and new ones we want are coming out regularly).

So, maybe it takes longer than I thought. Maybe it’ll even take a lifetime. That’s ok. I’ve got one of those.