When blueberry season approaches I am always so happy. Not only is there usually a surge of local New Jersey blueberries, but I can usually get them by the case at the local outdoor market pretty cheap. I'm not sure what the issue was this year, but the local market hasn't been flooded with these delicious berries, and, due to an overcrowded schedule, we haven't been able to get to Jersey a lot this year to get some on our own. Recently, however, I have been able to get some inexpensive blueberries that have been quite tasty despite their long travel from Chile. And, I'll tell you what, they made a damn good jam!

When my father in law (whom I also work with) comes into the office last week with a bag full of peppers, I knew it was his way of saying: "Can you make me some jelly?"

You see, I am one of those hosts who sets out a plate of crackers, cheeses, homemade sweets and jams every time someone stops by...even if it is for only a short time. I'm like a mini Martha Stewart in my own way, only a lot less pretentious and covered in tattoos. And despite the usual hesitance people have when I offer "jalapeno jelly" on crackers with cream cheese, it quickly turns into them begging for a jar to take home themselves.

Canning has been around since about the 19th century, however, in a world of modern convenience, more people turn to the superchains to supply their pantry with their canned fruits, veggies, jellies, jams and pickles. After all, spending a dollar or two is surely much easier than pulling your own veg, chopping, mixing and boiling your own canned foods, right? Well...store packaged foods, as we all know, are usually chocked full of preservatives and often contain chemical laden produce, so home canning is surely the only way to know for sure what is in your food. Whether you are growing your backyard tomatoes or buying them from the market, the process from start to finish is in your control and there is no greater satisfaction than cracking open a tightly sealed lid of a product your made yourself.

About a year ago I started becoming interested more in the concept of urban homesteading and just overall self-sufficiency. I had seen some videos on YouTube of a family in California who have become almost entirely self sufficient on their small plot of concrete just outside of Los Angeles and I envisioned being about to do something similar in my little next of the woods. Idealistic, right? But being self-sufficient and being self-sustaining are two completely different things, and being that I live in the heart of the fifth largest city in the U.S. in a home under 1,000 sq. ft. with almost no backyard space, no budget, no access to wild animals or trees and more city restrictions that one can express without becoming full of rage, it is not exactly possible to grow the majority of my own food and raise my own livestock. I can't walk outside and get fresh eggs from my own chickens. I don't have the nearly ten thousand dollars it would cost to put up solar panels on my home. And I don't have the ability to grow a fully-stocked 365-day-a-year garden to feed my family and survive through the brutal winter we have been having. There are things, though, that I have found that I can do quite easily without burdening my budget or sacrificing modern conveniences.
I have found that creative people come up with and execute the very best ideas in self sufficiency. We are, for the most part, open minded and can usually adapt and find new uses for old things. Sufficiency isn't limited to the ideas of growing food, raising chickens and collecting rain water. It's about non-consumerism and limiting the amount of "things" you buy from foreign places; it's about fixing something up before throwing it out; it's about making something instead of spending twice as much for the same product that is not nearly as good ( or full of preservatives if we are talking about food ).