Melba's Jammin' wrote:
Last week I was contacted by a producer at a local tv station (the ABC
affiliate, KSTP). She wanted to do a story about what goes on in
exhibitors' kitchens *before* the Fair begins and the ribbons are hung.
She wanted to come to my house and watch me can and talk to me. Shy,
retiring person that I am, I yust yumped all over it! grin

I figured I'd make my Corn Relish for them. Nice thought I had but the
execution left something to be desired. Ugh! Long story shorter: I am
about to chuck 9 half pints of sort of pickled corn relish. I say sort
of because I had too much corn for the amount of liquid ‹ not enough
liquid to properly cover the product. *This has never happened to me
before.* I went through the whole thing -- jarred it up and processed
it, mumbling to myself when I took the jars from the canner. After
spending 2 hours with me, the folks had to boogie on out, so they missed
the end of the process (taking the jars out).

Mind you, I had talked in our interview about the importance of acid
levels in safe waterbath processing and I gotta tell you that I was
starting to think that *maybe* all that corn had reduced the pH level of
the whole mess to a place where it might become unsafe for shelf
storage. It didn't taste as sharp as it should have, either. It took
me about two minutes to conclude that I was going to chuck it. I've
emailed them and explained what and why and that I'll do it again next
week. I do not expect them to come again (no point to it -- it would be
the same shooting they did today) for the redo.

I sure am annoyed and disappointed that I'm going to be chucking it all
* a waste of good ingredients and some money. Phooey and ptooey!

The producer said she hoped to put together three different "stories"
(45-90 seconds each ‹ out of two hours of raw material) for airing on
three different shows in the first couple of days of the Fair.

There you have it. They are really nice folks and I enjoyed a fun time
with them. They left with a jar of Bread & Butter pickles apiece and a
plate of brownies to share with their newsroom staff (or not). :-)

Darn it! You could have invited them to the Shirley Swankienda and we
could have taught them pressure canning whilst wearing our pearls, high
heels, and pickle hats.

I was on TV once but the arrest didn't stick. VBG

George