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TOP JOBS

Fresh is best, but if you cannot have access to fruits and vegetables at a farmer’s market year-round, canning your own could be a solution.

Getting started, there is a lot of trial and error, but expert canners say there are valuable tips and hints available from the bookstore to your next-door neighbor.

Monroe Sewell, of Troup, says becoming an expert canner depends on a lot on learning from others, collecting produce from a neighbor’s garden reserve, or in a good year, the overabundance of fruits and vegetables that would otherwise spoil.

“I started canning in 1995,” he says on a recent afternoon, after making his usual rounds to a local nursing home with his homemade pound cakes. “We moved out of the city and were living on a farm. I just wanted to get out of the big city life and try my hand at something new.”

Sewell also picked up canning and preserving because it kept him near to his wife, who was ailing.

“I needed something that would keep me close to the house, and found I really liked it,” he says with a sure grin. “I got into jellies and put up some tomato juice and some Blue Lakes (green beans) out of the garden.”

Sewell’s efforts paid off with ribbons at the East Texas State Fair for his tomato juice, strawberry jelly and mayhaw jelly.

After nearly 20 years, canning has become a kind of sport for Sewell, who tries his hand at the unusual, like his grapefruit jelly he’s delivered to friends as kind of a guessing game.

“I like to see if they can figure out what it is,” he laughs. “I give away my jellies. I’ve never sold a jar. I’ve had up to 300 pint jars of jelly at one time!

“I don’t eat the stuff. It’s just the joy of making it.”

But Sewell acknowledges the difficulties all beginners run into. Although he receives accolades for his work most of the time, he says there have been hits and misses.

“Once, I put up 16 quarts of Blue Lakes and they did not seal,” he says. “I wanted to sit down and cry. It’s a lot of work to pick enough for 16 quarts, cut them, boil them and pack them in the jars. I had to start all over.”

But even when his jellies don’t gel, Sewell counts the result anyway.

“If you like pancakes, there’s nothing quite like jelly that doesn’t gel to go on the top,” he says, raising his eyebrows.

His advice is simple.

“If you’re not in the mood for it, don’t do it,” he says. “Canning and preserving does take some patience because there’s so many things you’ve got to do.

“Know a little about the product you’re going to put up. Find someone who has put them up before, and don’t be afraid to ask somebody to share their secrets. Most of the time, they’re more than willing.”

Finally, Sewell says to be prepared. Make sure you know what you’ll need to complete the canning process.

“You don’t want to get in the middle of something and have to run to town,” he says with an experienced nod.

Sewell enjoys his work in the kitchen, now perfecting the art of pound cakes of all flavors he delivers to a local nursing home to be enjoyed by residents and staff.

“I’m really into making pound cakes,” he says. “Usually, I take anywhere from seven to nine pound cakes up there.”

Maybe it was his adventuresome spirit and a new found love of cooking that has allowed him to branch out, and reach out to his family, publishing a cookbook of traditional family recipes in 2006.

Over a period of years, Sewell collected recipes from every member of his extended family, and now, he says, the book is something they can all treasure.

“I’m not gonna live forever,” he smiles. “I wanted something that would.”

In the jacket notes, Sewell writes, “I counted it a joy to work on our family book; it gave me a chance to get to know some of you better, and now with our book of recipes, I have found your favorite foods. My desire is that you will treasure this book as a family heirloom for the rest of your life. …”