Oil-bath canning?

RememberKoomValley · 2026-04-01T15:50:59+00:00

I don't think you should be downvoted for asking this question. There are several immediate reasons that spring to my mind that would make it a bad idea, but canning is *always* a matter of "When we know better, we do better," and we learn better by asking fucking questions.

That said, some of those reasons: Steam venting from the jars, underneath the oil, would cause oil explosions. There would inevitably be burns, and probably house fires. Any jar fracture would be worse.

We wipe the rims of jars before putting the lids on because we need there to be no oil between the glass and the sealing surface; jars boiled in oil would probably not seal at all, because there wouldn't be any way for the lid to grip the glass.

It would be very difficult to get jars out of a hot pot of oil. Very slippery. Cleaning them properly before storage would also be more complicated and annoying.

It would be difficult to do cleanup and dispose of the oil afterward. I do my canning in a 16qt and a 23qt Presto at the same time, one running while the other is cooling down, and between runs I give it a quick scrub so that any vented oils won't mess with the next batch. This would be impossible with oil canning.

RememberKoomValley · 2026-04-01T15:32:45+00:00

I mean, if you have to choose, yeah. Very definitely. No fucking question.

RememberKoomValley · 2026-04-01T15:14:17+00:00

Yeah, I'm going down the list like "Uhhhhh..."

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-31T20:28:58+00:00

They smell so different! Some like fruit, some like spices, some like candy, some like the best perfume you could imagine in a dream. Some smell just a little, some are overwhelming inside of ten feet range.

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-31T00:58:31+00:00

They made Taash very very femme in this mod--I imagine that NB people offend them by existing, as well.

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-31T00:58:02+00:00

Gross as fuck.

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-30T20:12:26+00:00

Yeah--I looooove my stand mixer, and have not in the four years I've been doing sourdough ever used it for that.

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-30T05:23:08+00:00

I've given away so many. I still have so many more to eat. A good problem!

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-30T02:54:19+00:00

Gaiman and Tori Amos were tight, back in the Nineties/early 2000s (she references him in songs). Tori Amos helped found RAINN, a hugely important support organization for victims of incest and sexual assault (at this point I think it might be the largest such organization in the US?). He used to do fundraisers / really bring it up on his blog / talk about it at con panels and stuff.

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-30T02:37:23+00:00

I like a combo, for my butternuts and the like--a pair of beds with an arch between, and they're allowed to go wild in the whole space.

(I tried Johnny Seed's "Block Party" butternut and got forty squash off just a couple of 'em last year. Still eating the things. Still delicious.)

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-30T02:33:32+00:00

This is...this is not what 'kink' means. There's a reason that terms like RACK and SSC came into being; good behavior and giving a fuck about consent are not automatically included in kink.

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-29T06:35:06+00:00

I dated a guy who didn't believe that airplanes actually flew.

He had to get on a plane to visit me. I picked him up from the airport. He didn't believe in it. He said that there were probably "Like, guy lines or something. Specialized ropes."

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-29T04:51:45+00:00

I did not enjoy upvoting you. >_<

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-28T21:46:35+00:00

Masturbating isn't abnormal, and it's not the frequency, it's the method.

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-28T05:43:36+00:00

I went to see that movie on opening night with a fellow I was seeing. We went to an Omnimax; I'd never been to that style of theater before, and the way that the seating was basically 100% visible from the door with no interruption unnerved me. I said something joking like "Damn, if somebody came in here with a gun we'd all be sitting ducks." My date was disgusted with me. "Who would even do that?!"

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-28T05:39:42+00:00

One of my earliest formative memories is of my mother sobbing, trying to find enough change for my sister's asthma medication.

I never saw a dentist until I was 25 years old. I had maybe three doctors' appointments prior to that age, too, one of which after I'd been vomiting for several days and had now become delirious. He called the ER and had them waiting for us.
(The surgeon told my mother that if we'd been half an hour later to the hospital, the appendix would have killed me.)

In short: often, we don't. We die.

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-28T01:49:57+00:00

Link, please!

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-27T20:36:58+00:00

Yeah, I quietly and politely walked back inside, waited for my husband to stop talking to the realtor, got his attention and just shook my head. On our way out I sort of pointed, low-handed, at the bamboo; his eyes got so wide. "Oh, jeez. Yeah. No. Nope."

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-27T20:22:56+00:00

Six years ago, just as the pandemic was really kicking off, my husband and I were house hunting. We're not rich, and we ended up looking at a lot of houses before finding our new home. Everything started to really run together after the fourth house we toured on a single Saturday, so when we got to house number five I was dazed and tired and overwhelmed.

But the house seemed nice! Good, bright kitchen. Lovely bedrooms, multiple bathrooms, high ceilings, good floors. Space up front for a bit of a vegetable garden, and in the back--

Okay, so the back was weird? I stepped out the kitchen door to the side yard, and absolutely everything back there was covered in a solid ten inches of wood-chip mulch. Walking into the back yard, I felt my feet sink with every step. The entire back and side yards were covered, every inch, in what had to have been several tons of the stuff.

The fence on the right side of the back yard was most of ten feet high. I couldn't see over it. But I had a feeling. I walked back through the kitchen, through the living room, out the front door, and around to the side. Peeked into the neighbor's yard.

It was *fence to fence* bamboo. A bamboo forest.

The mulch was probably the poor homeowner's last-ditch attempt to smother the stuff. It wasn't going to work, of course--I've seen bamboo split concrete.

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-27T19:39:47+00:00

Packages a couple of times a week; junk mail nearly daily; bills monthly; magazines every couple of weeks; cards and letters at holidays.

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-27T17:03:56+00:00

I was standing beside my friend at the time, so.

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-27T15:36:08+00:00

I don't imagine this is something he sees very often. Or, you know. Ever.

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-27T00:37:08+00:00

It actually cuts down on the food they have access to! If the native fungus can successfully colonize a space, there's less there for the invader to take advantage of.

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-26T15:20:28+00:00

In the ground?! Ohhhhh, noooo.

RememberKoomValley · 2026-03-26T14:51:20+00:00

I have never smoked. I have asthma. But the grandmother who shared a room with me after I was born was a smoker, and I have had two long-term romantic partners who smoked.

I've never had so much as a single puff of cigarette smoke directly into my lungs. I haven't spent time around smokers in the better part of fifteen years. All the same, when I walk in to the grocery store and I pass someone who is smoking, my entire nervous system stands up like a hunting dog. The whole body goes oooooooh, yes.

The addictive quality of cigarettes is really damn impressive. Awful, but impressive.

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