Katie Quinn-Jacobs's Blog (16)

Meet the Members: Rachel Firak

Meet the Members highlights an IthaCan member to find out what they're up to, what they've learned from putting food by and what future plans they have for preserving food at home. We'll be featuring a new member about every month.…

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Added by Katie Quinn-Jacobs on January 15, 2013 at 1:00pm — 2 Comments

2013 IthaCan Slate of Events

Here's an introductory slate of IthaCan events we will offer in 2013. Some of these events need hosts and/or organizers. Contact Katie Q-J, if interested.

NOTE to Members: Feel free to add to the list by hosting your own gathering at your place on a date that works for you. Fill out the form under the …

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Added by Katie Quinn-Jacobs on November 20, 2012 at 8:00am — No Comments

Letter to Nat'l Center of Home Food Presevers re: BPA in Jarden Brand Canning Lids

After review from a number of our members, I emailed the letter below out this morning to Dr. Elizabeth Andress, who heads the National Center for Home Food Processing at the University of Georgia. Copies went to our local CCE of Tompkins County and a printed copy will go out today to Jarden (the maker of Ball & Kerr jars.)

-- Kate

October 1, 2010

Dear Dr. Andress,

I am writing on behalf of our home food preservers network,… Continue

Added by Katie Quinn-Jacobs on October 1, 2010 at 7:03am — 5 Comments

IthaCan & Harvestation in Tompkins Weekly

IthaCanners, Louis Johnson and Seph Doliner, are featured in a photo for an article about Harvestation's launch in this week's Tompkins Weekly. Johnson and Doliner were part of an IthaCan salsa making Event where some of the ingredients were purchased through Harvestation. Fun to see IthaCan in the news.

"Increasingly, area residents are seeing the wisdom of putting food by. As households transition from… Continue

Added by Katie Quinn-Jacobs on September 21, 2010 at 3:30am — No Comments

IthaCan makes it to public radio!

I spoke at WSKG last evening as part of a trio of guests on Community Conversations hosted by Crystal Sarakis. The topic was "Beyond Oil" and I was there on behalf of IthaCan and PreparedTompkins.org.

It was a wonderful opportunity to talk about things we do here on IthaCan as well as address the issue of energy descent. It was also good to catch up on wants going on in the Binghamton sustainability mov't and hear about the efforts underway in Caroline as well. If you want… Continue

Added by Katie Quinn-Jacobs on July 28, 2010 at 3:51pm — 1 Comment

Arsenic in Inorganic Chicken Feed

Found an interesting article on Grist on the use of arsenic in chicken feed passing through to eggs. This story features two children who had arsenic in their urine that was traced to their backyard chickens. Word to the wise: Arsenic is not allowed in organic feed.

"The Utah… Continue

Added by Katie Quinn-Jacobs on July 23, 2010 at 4:30pm — No Comments

IthaCan's Mason on Canning Across America

Mason's gone national! Well...at least he's getting his 15 minutes of fame on a national forum: Canning Across America (CAA). And word has it that Mason's thrilled to be part of the larger canning community.

Canning Across America "is a nationwide, ad hoc collective of cooks, gardeners and food lovers committed to the revival of the lost art of… Continue

Added by Katie Quinn-Jacobs on April 15, 2010 at 6:39am — 3 Comments

Lambing!

Lambs! What a day we had yesterday! Two sets of twins out of our 2 ewes: 3 rams lambs, 1 ewe lamb. Sadly, one of the ram lambs died early in the morning before we got out to the barn. Looks like he never had the caul cleared from his face.

But what confusion we had the first half of the day trying to figure out who was the surviving lamb's mother. And even whether the lambs were twins or two singletons. Sounds silly, but both ewes had evidence of vulvar… Continue

Added by Katie Quinn-Jacobs on March 25, 2010 at 7:30am — 3 Comments

Marcellus Shale Drilling - Write Governor Paterson

There are 3 weeks left to write to Governor Paterson before he makes his decision to accept or reject the DEC's draft environmental impact statement (dSGEIS). Wherever you come down on this issue, if you want to be heard now's the time to act. The comment period ends: Dec 31.

Governor Paterson's Contact Info:

email: governor@chamber.state.ny.us

Postal address:

Governor David A. Paterson

State Capitol

Albany, NY… Continue

Added by Katie Quinn-Jacobs on December 3, 2009 at 11:10am — 1 Comment

IthaCan in the Ithaca Journal

IthaCan in the News!

Check out the article Ithacans Are Turning to Home-Preserving Home-Grown Food by Stacey Shackford.

"They are skills our grandparents took for granted, but ones that seem to have slipped through the collective consciousness of an increasingly consumer society: canning, cellaring,… Continue

Added by Katie Quinn-Jacobs on November 30, 2009 at 7:23am — 2 Comments

Late Blight & Bonnie Plants

For those of us interested in the back story on the distribution of blighted tomato plants attributed to Bonnie Plants, here's an interview from Greenhouse Growers, Bonnie GM Goes on the Record. Not surprisingly, the Bonnie rep does his best to deflect blame: citing an anecdotal case of a blighted tomato mistakenly assumed to be a Bonnie plant, omitting the discovery of blight on 20% of Bonnie tomato plants at a… Continue

Added by Katie Quinn-Jacobs on August 12, 2009 at 5:00pm — 3 Comments

Gad-Zukes!

Okay, it's here...zucchini season. Share what you do with yours. A prize* will be given to whoever comes up with the most creative zuke use.

*Warning: This could be just a devious scheme to give zucchinis away as prizes. But then again...maybe not?

Added by Katie Quinn-Jacobs on July 28, 2009 at 5:56am — 8 Comments

Some Canning Do's and Don'ts from NYT

Here's a short but sweet reminder I found in the NY Times on canning safety.

...recipes should be followed closely, and should not be culled from index cards dating from the Great Depression. The Department of Agriculture, having devoted extensive testing to home preserving, recommends not using any preserving recipes developed before about 1990.

And here some basic guidelines to use when trying to determine if a jar of canned goods has "gone… Continue

Added by Katie Quinn-Jacobs on June 24, 2009 at 7:05am — No Comments

Plan Now to Preserve Upcoming Harvest

by Katie Quinn-Jacobs

from Tompkins Weekly, May 4-10, Volume 3, No. 29

for Signs of Sustainability Series

As you begin to plant your garden this spring or anticipate the locally grown foods that will soon be available from area farmers, take some time to plan how you will preserve all that good food once it starts rolling in this summer. You might want to join IthaCan (www.IthaCan.ning.com), an online social network, where food preservation… Continue

Added by Katie Quinn-Jacobs on May 4, 2009 at 7:30pm — No Comments

HR 875 The Food Safety Modernization Act

A well reasoned synopsis on the "Food Safety Modernization Act" from Food and Water Watch. Basically, we need to push our Congressional reps to put in language that reflects scale. As of 3/31/09, Maurice Hinchey is co-sponsoring the bill; Michael Arcuri is not.

"There is plenty of evidence that one-size-fits-all… Continue

Added by Katie Quinn-Jacobs on March 31, 2009 at 3:47pm — 1 Comment

Root Cellars: Summer's Bounty Underground

OCTOBER 1, 2008

ROOT CELLARS: SUMMER’S BOUNTY UNDERGROUND

By Katie Quinn-Jacobs, PreparedTompkins.org

Printed in Tompkins Weekly, Oct 6-12, 2008

Signs of Sustainability Series

Root cellars save money, are a passive energy source for cooling foods, promote self-reliance and support the local food shed, so why aren’t there more of them? The answer is simple: we’ve experienced sixty years of reliable year-round… Continue

Added by Katie Quinn-Jacobs on March 10, 2009 at 2:00pm — 2 Comments