Holiday Story – Homemade Gifts Gone Wrong

The holiday season brings with it the stress of finding the
perfect gift. For most it means crowded parking lots, long lines and
hours at a mall, but Environment Report commentator Julia King
decided to avoid some of the mass production and commercialization
of Christmas this year. Instead, she got back to “Holiday Spirit”
by trying her hand at something a bit closer to home:

Transcript

The holiday season brings with it the stress of finding the perfect gift. For most
it means crowded
parking lots, long lines and hours at a mall, but Environment Report commentator
Julia King
decided to avoid some of the mass production and commercialization of Christmas this
year.
Instead, she got back to “Holiday Spirit” by trying her hand at something a bit
closer to home:


Now, I don’t like to brag, but can I just say that I MADE my holiday gifts this
year? Let me tell you
the story of my apple butter.


In the fall, when other people were walking through crunchy leaves and carving
pumpkins and
going on hayrides, I was riding my environmentally friendly bike to the local
farmer’s market
where I bought many pounds of chemical-free Indiana apples and put them in my
backpack and
then rode home with hard, yellow delicious apples digging into my spine and under my
shoulder
blades. I had to do this many times because my family kept eating the apples. Like
snacks, instead
of future gifts. So, I had to make a lot of bike rides with a lot of apples sticking
into my back.


Oh well, holiday spirit.


But I finally stockpile all the apples and the cider – oh yeah, the cider: I had to
drive to the
farmers’ market twice in the rain to get fresh, un-pasteurized cider. Okay, so then
I have
everything I need and I boil the cider until it reduces by half – which takes a
couple of hours, then
I peel the apples (which doesn’t take as long but gives me a cramp in my right hand
and makes me
wonder if I’m developing arthritis because I could be, you know; I’m not getting any
younger).
Then I dump the apples into the reduced cider and boil and then simmer and then stir
and then
boil and then simmer and then add secret, exotic spices (okay, cinnamon), and then
boil and stir
and simmer for about thirty-nine days, during which time I can’t leave the house
because the
stove is on, and fire safety requires that I stay. Finally, when all the moisture is
gone, it’s time to
put the apple butter into jars and “process” it, which is the worst part because if
you do it wrong
you could kill people. And that’s always especially sad at the holidays.


So, you have to wash and boil the jars, but NOT the lids with the rubber — because
if you do, you
could kill people. You have to keep everything warm, and then you have to pour the
apple butter
into the clean jars while it’s still boiling and then wipe the rim with a clean
towel so that it seals
right and you don’t kill people.


Then you have to boil it in the closed jars for about fifteen minutes and then when
it comes out it’s
supposed to make a sound as it cools and that should mean it’s safe.


And when it’s all done, you look around the kitchen and see dirty pots and pans and
globs of
brown stuff all over your stove and yards of apple peels and there, in the midst of
this chaos, sit
three little four-ounce jars of apple butter.


And then you go to the store the next day and see that it only costs a dollar-fifty!
And you curse
capitalism. And now on top of making your friends and family play Russian roulette
with
botulism, they have to sit through the story of how you made their apple butter.


Oh well, holiday spirit.


Julia King lives and writes in Goshen, Indiana. She
comes to us by way of the Environment Report.

Empty Busses Need Snappy Ad Campaign

Go into any store these days and chances are you’ll find a bargain: buy two shirts and get one free… or buy a burger and get another one half-price. Retailers market their products with attractive deals because they know it works. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King thinks it’s time to use that marketing magic to get more of us to “buy into” public transportation:

Transcript

Go into any store these days and chances are you’ll find a bargain: buy two shirts and get
one free… or buy a burger and get another one half-price. Retailers market their products
with attractive deals because they know it works. Great Lakes Radio Consortium
commentator, Julia King, thinks it’s time to use that marketing magic to get more of us to
“buy into” public transportation:


A couple years back, my smallish Northern Indiana town got an honest-to-goodness
PUBLIC BUS. Progressive types started walkin’ a little taller, a little prouder – because,
well, when you have a BUS it means you live in a place where somebody cares.


Our bus is such a good thing, in fact, that people hate to talk about the one little problem:
(whisper) nobody ever rides it. Okay, that’s not exactly true. Last Tuesday, my
neighbor’s friend thought she saw someone in the very last row on the right hand side.


I’m just BARELY exaggerating. There are really only two kinds of people who ever get
on our bus: hardcore greenie tree-huggers… and those who have no other form of
transportation.


So, now, with tight government budgets and higher gas prices, some cost-conscious
citizens are rightly taking a closer look at our not-so-public public transportation.


In a letter to a local paper, one man put it this way: “I would prefer not having taxpayers’
dollars go literally up in fumes.” He suggested we have two choices: put the bus out of
its misery, or get more people to RIDE it.


According to the American Public Transportation Association, we could reduce our oil
dependence by about 40% – almost the amount we import from Saudi Arabia in a year –
if Americans would use public transportation for just 10% of our daily travel.


You know, radio stations hand out cash and concert tickets to attract listeners; television
stations lure viewers with home makeovers; cola companies entice customers with
everything from free soda to a chance at a BILLION dollars.


What do bus riders get for their trouble? Hmmm? Oh yeah – more trouble. If it’s hot, or
cold, or raining, and there’s a comfortable car ten feet away in the garage, taking a bus is
work.


In large cities, where drivers compete for rare and costly parking spaces, public
transportation offers tangible rewards in the way of convenience and affordability. But in
communities with plenty of space and manageable traffic – if you have a car – the only
reasons to ride a bus are long-term, big picture, goody-goody reasons like ozone
reduction, energy conservation and curbing global warming.


Here’s where the public sector can use a little private-sector know-how. Catchy jingles,
cash prizes, gift certificates at shops along the bus routes, maybe chocolate
riders need something in the here and now. Like anything else Americans buy, public
transportation is a product. It’s time to start selling it.


Host Tag: Julia King can be found riding the bus… alone… in Goshen, Indiana. She
comes to us by way of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.

Related Links

“24 Carrot” Farmers

According to the USDA, the number of farmers’ markets in the United States has increased nearly 80 percent in the past decade, with roughly 3,100 in operation. Like many other Midwesterners, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King buys much of her warm-weather produce from local growers. But King thinks those farmers grow something else that might be just as important as food:

Transcript

According to the USDA, the number of farmers’ markets in the United States has
increased nearly 80 percent in the past decade, with roughly 3,100 in operation. Like
many other Midwesterners, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King buys
much of her warm-weather produce from local growers. But King thinks those farmers
grow something else that might be just as important as food…


Not long ago, my ten-year-old daughter gathered her allowance, dropped her coins into a
see-through, polka-dot plastic purse and journeyed with me to our local farmers’ market.
Inside the old warehouse-turned-emporium, we strolled up and down the aisles. She
sniffed bars of soap and fragrant candles, poked bags of cheese bread and gazed at
almond croissants. But it was a large butternut squash that finally caught her eye.


She smiled and pointed at the unusual treasure. The farmer behind the counter called out
a price and I watched from a distance as she dug into her little plastic purse, pulling out a
quarter here, a dime there. As she calculated the numbers, her smile faded; she was fifty
cents shy of the total.


“Oh, you go ahead and take it anyway,” he told her. “It’s a little bit old, really.”


She paused, uncertain. I stepped into view and offered a dollar to the farmer, but he
stood his ground. He wanted to sell the squash to my daughter for the price she could
afford. He said it was a fair exchange. We thanked him repeatedly and my daughter took
the big pear-shaped vegetable in her arms like it was a baby doll.


It was not the first time one of the market’s farmers had put kindness before cash. Shop
there long enough and someone is bound to say, “Oh, take two, they’re small” or “This
one’s a little bruised; I’ll throw it in for free.”


These aren’t “blue light specials” or “supersaver sales;” they’re gifts from people who
never tire of the magic that springs from the earth. In a year of Saturdays, I’ve been
invited to marvel at the shape of a carrot, to behold the size of a potato, to delight in the
beauty of a snapdragon.


In a nation of box stores and billionaire wannabes, a nation where “excess” is master, the
men and women who labor in the soil offer a glimpse of something different. It’s a
commerce measured not only by what they gain, but also by what they give.


John Greenleaf Whittier put it best in his poem, “Song of Harvest”:


Give fools their gold, and knaves their power;
Let fortune’s bubbles rise and fall;
Who sows a field, or trains a flower,
Or plants a tree, is more than all.


HOST TAG: Julia King lives and writes in Goshen, Indiana. She comes to us by way of
the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.

Related Links

A Better Beer for St. Patty’s Day

This week, Irish – and those who wish to join them – will celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, in honor of the man who converted the Irish to Christianity. People will eat corned beef and cabbage, don shamrocks… and talk in fake Irish accents. Many of them will also drink green beer. But Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator, Julia King, says the beer could be even greener:

Transcript

This week Irish – and those who wish to join them – will celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, in honor of
the man who converted the Irish to Christianity. People will eat corned beef and cabbage, don
shamrocks and talk in fake Irish accents. Many of them will also drink green beer. But Great
Lakes Radio Consortium commentator, Julia King, says the beer could be even greener:


In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I’m going to make a personal disclosure… I like beer.


I first got the feeling this was somehow inappropriate when I was in my early twenties and I
stopped into a mini-mart to get something to drink. I put the bottles up on the counter and the
guy at the register said – exactly like this:


“You lika beera?”


He looked at me as if I had bought a whip and fishnet stockings instead of a six-pack. I blushed.


But you know, I’m grown up now and a lot less shy. So, now I’m going tell you that I not only
“lika beera”, I have a KEG in my house. That’s right, and I like it so much I think every serious
beer drinker within the sound of my voice ought to consider a keg.


Actually, I prefer to use the term “BEER-ON-TAP.” A “KEG” sounds like my husband and I
might be den-parents at a frat house. “BEER-ON-TAP” sounds like we have a lot of beer, but
we don’t drink it out of 32 oz plastic cups.


It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: this is NOT an invitation to become a drunkard. In
a two-adult household, if each adult consumes one or two beers a day, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology says those adults are likely to live a little longer; and I say those adults might as well
have a keg. This is an invitation to be environmentally friendly. See how just about anything
can be made morally correct?


Of course, like any worthwhile home improvement, a keg startup requires an investment. Unless
you want to squeeze your groceries around a big vat of beer, you’ll need an extra refrigerator.
You’ll also need a carbon dioxide cylinder to keep the beer fresh for the next month or two (See?
it’s not for drinking all at once… restraint; moderation).


Once you’re set up, though, you’re likely to save money on the best micro-brews. At my house,
we save 40% off the bottled price. And in a year’s time we save the fuel for countless drives to
the liquor store and the energy required to recycle about 1,400 bottles.


So this St. Pattie’s Day, remember if you really want to drink green beer, consider a keg.

Working From Home

The gift-giving season has come and gone. Some folks ended up with sweaters that were two sizes too large; some folks got sparkly baubles; and lots of people were the beneficiaries of gifts promising to simplify their lives – including their work lives. With millions of Americans working out of their homes, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King thinks home-office life after the holidays is going to be smooth sailing! Or is it?

Transcript

The gift-giving season has come and gone. Some folks ended up with sweaters that were two
sizes too large; some folks got sparkly baubles; and lots of people were the beneficiaries of gifts
promising to simplify their lives – including their work lives. With millions of Americans
working out of their homes, Great Lakes Radio Consortium
commentator Julia King thinks home-office life after the holidays is going to be smooth sailing!
Or is it?


Testing, testing, one, two, three.


This is great. I’m standing in my living room right now because my generous, genius husband got
me recording equipment for Christmas. I’m his very favorite NPR commentator. I think.


So, I used to have to go to an actual studio for this kind of thing. (“Look at my picture,
Mommy!”) Not now, honey. I had to get in my car (and burn fossil fuel), drive miles away
(sometimes in snow or pouring rain) and then (VIOLIN PLAYS IN BACKGROUND) I’d hope
that the engineer would show up.


Hey, Sweetheart. Mommy’s working here. Can I get a little cooperation? Thanks.


Anyway, one of the studios had this weird hum. We never could figure out exactly what it was…
(MAN YELLS QUESTION IN BACKGROUND) I think I saw it in the upstairs bathroom.


I remember once I brought a big wool blanket into the studio and we hung it over some buzzing
generator but it…


(PHONE RINGS)


Hello. Oh, hi. What’ cha doing? Oh yeah. That’s too funny. Hey, can I call you back? I’m
actually recording right now. Uh huh. No. It’s serious, high-quality stuff. Stuart got it for me
for Christmas. Yeah. Isn’t that great? Okay, I’ll talk to you later. Bye.


So the wool blanket didn’t work. And the other studio was, well, let’s just say we had a
minor disagreement about my importance. You know how that is.


Generally speaking, the only downside to this whole commentary thing has been the recording
aspect. Now it’s like all my problems (DOG BARKS) are solved. Can somebody let the dog out?
Now I’m going to be working all the time. Wow. I recommend this set up to anybody who’s
considering working for radio.


This is fabulous. I wonder what great idea my husband will come up with next year for
Christmas. I hope he gets me a snow-cone maker.

Julia King lives, writes – and records from her living room – in Goshen, Indiana. She comes to
us by way of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.

Bicyclists Peddle Curbside Recycling

Many cities throughout the Midwest enjoy the benefit of curbside recycling in their towns. But for some areas curbside recycling just hasn’t taken root. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King says those towns might want to follow the lead of two creative bicyclists from her city. Are they nuts? Or are they on to something?:

Transcript

Many cities throughout the Midwest/Great Lakes States enjoy the benefit of curbside recycling in
their towns. But for some areas, curbside recycling just hasn’t taken root. Great Lakes Radio
Consortium commentator Julia King says those towns might want to follow the lead of two creative
bicyclists from her city. Are they nuts? Or are they on to something?


According to a U.S. Department of Transportation Study, nearly a quarter of all Americans rode a
bike at least once during the past year. Most of the nearly 21 million people in this country who
hopped on a bike did so for fun. In other words, we view our bikes more like toys than tools.


But two guys in Northern Indiana are trying to change that. Some people are locking up their
bicycles for the season, tucking them away in garages and sheds. Tom Benevento and Brian
Krushwitz are pumping up their tires and oiling their chains, preparing to put their bikes to use.


Borrowing from a project in Ames, Iowa, called “Bikes at Work,” the men will twice a month lead
a small crew of cyclists through a Goshen, Indiana neighborhood collecting recyclables. But these
are no ordinary bikes. These are bikes equipped with trailers that can pull up to three hundred
pounds of material. And these guys aren’t just recycling – they’re also providing paid work for a
couple of financially struggling residents.


Here’s how it works: In a town with no curbside recycling, volunteer organizers Benevento and
Krushwitz easily found twenty families to pay $5 a month each for the no diesel pick-up service.
The families put their stuff in a container, the crew comes by and straps all the full containers on
the bike trailer, leaves empties in their place, then deposits the glass-plastic-paper-etc. at the nearest
recycling site.


According to Krushwitz, it only takes about 2 1/2 hours each month. It’s not a lot of work, but the
work pays twice the hourly minimum wage. With expansion and tweaking, this could bring real
salaries to people who need them. And those salaries would be generated with a positive
environmental impact.


Benevento started the project because he wanted to demonstrate that old problems can be solved in
new ways. His passion is bikes, but he also relished the opportunity to create work for the poor in
his small community. He wanted to tangibly express his belief that social justice is a key
component of sustainability.


Ultimately, these are the sorts of innovations that stretch the imagination. Some will no doubt laugh
at using so much human power when a big truck would do. Others will say riding a bike in January
doesn’t sound innovative; it sounds crazy.


But naysayers should remember that every solution doesn’t work in every community. Bike-
powered recycling might not work in Anchorage Alaska, but it just might in any number of other
cities across the country. Every good problem-solver knows all ideas are with exploring.


Moving the bicycle beyond a recreational toy is an idea worth exploring.


Julia King lives, writes, and watches from her window as her
recycling gets picked up in Goshen, Indiana. She comes to us by way of the
Great Lakes Radio Consortium.

Related Links

The Polemics of Rodents

November 4th is Election Day. Voters throughout the region will choose their mayors and city council members, maybe support a ballot measure or two. Basically, one vote can be the end result of a long argument about what matters most. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King thinks the democratic process would be a whole lot easier if we were all a little less… human:

Transcript

Nov. 4th is Election Day. Voters throughout the region will choose their mayors and city council
members, maybe support a ballot measure or two. Basically, one vote can be the end result of a
long argument about what matters most. Great Lakes Radio Consortium Commentator, Julia
King, thinks the democratic process would be whole lot easier if we were all a little less human.


Things would be so much simpler if people were like – hamsters, or jackrabbits, or snails.


The point here being that if our species were a little more uniform – the way most other species
are – we’d have an easier time with politics.


Seriously, think about hamsters: they like exercise wheels, sleeping during the day, and sunflower
seeds. They don’t like cats. They don’t like pokey little kid fingers in their eyes and they don’t
like bright light. There’s not a lot of controversy in the hamster kingdom because they all pretty
much have the same likes and dislikes. It would be easy developing a policy that hamsters could
really rally around. Can’t you just see their little signs: “More Plastic Tubing!” and “We Heart
Sunflower Seeds!”


But people, oh my goodness, just look at us: some guy likes mountains and some woman wants
the ocean. One kid is quiet and shy and loves butterflies. Another is loud and fast and wants to
play hockey.


We have no set habitat, or diet, or demeanor. Some of us run from a fight and others of us go
looking everywhere for one. There are humans who want to talk everything through, who believe
it’s a civic duty to explore a public policy. And there are others who’d really rather focus on
something, more pleasant, less potentially explosive, like which European woman will fall for the
latest Joe Millionaire .


There are certain needs we do all share – water, food, shelter, love. But even those things we
can’t quite agree upon. Is water for thirsty people, or for swimming pools? Is the food
vegetarian or barbeque beef? Is your shelter threatening a wetland eco system or is the darn
wetland robbing you of your dream home? Does love mean engaging in dialogue or leaving
people the heck alone?


It’s a cruel trick nature plays on our species. We’re tangled up together on this planet, some six
billion of us, with an infinite array of dreams and visions and yet there is just this one great big
ball on which we all live.


Politics brings out the best and worst in humans. We organize into factions that can build or
destroy, that can nurture the spirit or evoke the meanness that resides in all of us.


Unlike much of the animal world, we achieve our goals not through sheer instinct, but through
intellect and focused determination. We have to outthink and outwork our foes to prevail. Yet
win or lose, we’re still tethered to one another, forever sentenced to the toil of negotiation in the
face of endless human want.


Whew.


Sunflower seeds, anyone?

Taking Bite Out of Canine Confrontations

Humans have been living with dogs for some 12,000 years, using them for hunting, protection, and friendship. Yet as both human and dog populations have grown, so too have the problems between the species. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King has discovered that with warmer temperatures, the furless and the furry often find themselves nose to snout in public places:

Transcript

Humans have been living with dogs for some 12,000 years, using them for hunting, protection,
and friendship. Yet as both human and dog populations have grown, so too have the problems
between the species. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator, Julia King, has discovered
that with warmer temperatures, the furless and the furry often find themselves nose to snout in
public places:


Fifty-three million dogs live in the United States – more per capita than in any other country in
the world. One out of every three households here includes a canine companion.


Despite the fact that they drink out of toilets and roll in a wide range of things unspeakable, we let
them sit on our sofas, give us big slobbery kisses and ride in the front seats of our cars.


We like to think of our dogs as our better halves. And sometimes they are, with their wagging
bodies and their penchant for forgiveness. And because they forgive us our trespasses, we’re
inclined to do the same for them.


“Oh, don’t you worry,” said a gray-haired lady in the park recently. “My Rover wouldn’t hurt a
flea!” Meanwhile, her dog snarled at my left thigh. Eventually Rover grew bored of tormenting
me and I jogged (ever-so-gingerly) into the sunset unharmed.


But each year some four and a half million other Americans aren’t so lucky; that’s how many dog
bites are estimated annually in the U.S, according to canine aggression experts. Nearly 335,000
victims are admitted to emergency rooms each year. The insurance industry estimates more than
a billion dollars in dog-related liability claims annually.


Despite all the chew toys and rawhides we shower on them, dogs bite us. Not because they’re
bad, but because they’re dogs. They don’t know any of the good swear words. They can’t pound
their fists on the kitchen table, or throw plates when they’re really mad; instead, they have sharp
teeth.


We should love our dogs. But loving them doesn’t mean expecting them to be human; it means
acknowledging that they’re not.


As the weather warms up so, too, does the likelihood that humans and dogs will “mix it up” out
on sunny sidewalks and in public parks. That means those of us with dogs have some added
responsibilities.


Yes, yes… we know… Fido is a perfect dear, wouldn’t harm an ant. Just the same, please do us
all a favor and keep him on a leash.


(Bark!) Hey, ( Bark! Bark! Bark!) get back here!


Host tag: Julia King lives with a man, a kid, and a dog in Goshen, Indiana. She comes to us by
way of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.

The Scent of Peace

Struggle is the very essence of nature. As long as humans have lived, there has been war, and today there is no single issue looming larger in the American psyche than the matter of war with Iraq. After the “expert” opinions, national surveys, and grainy surveillance photos, ultimately – Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King believes – the heart must respond. Here, she lets hers speak:

Transcript

Struggle is the very essence of nature. As long as humans have lived, there has been war. And
today there is no single issue looming larger in the American psyche than the matter of war with
Iraq. After the “expert” opinions, national surveys, and grainy surveillance photos, ultimately –
Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King believes – the heart must respond. Here, she lets hers
speak:


I am a woman who wants peace. It was stitched into the fabric of my soul some 400,000 years
ago when first we walked the planet. It was written in the stars and in the rolling oceans and in
the crickets’ song and on the soft, sweet-smelling skin of my daughter’s cheek. It’s not a whim,
this longing, this weight in my bones; it’s of design.


Women know these truths, not because we are better or smarter, but because we are different
from men, especially men who would launch horror into the lives of mothers and sons,
grandfathers and daughters, friends and strangers.


Yes, women have been loud and angry and strong; we have dominated and bullied, we have
fought and attacked, but we have not made war. Because we have grown humans in our bodies
and labored to help them into the world and then cradled them at our breasts to nourish them, we
take personally their orchestrated, surgical destruction.


I know, some will shout “stereotype!” They’ll say it’s not that simple – and they’ll be right: it
isn’t. “Margaret Thatcher,” they’ll say. But I won’t be convinced. And that’s okay – every
certainty is an imperfect expression of the human condition.


One can persuade the mind of almost anything. But women have learned to listen just as
carefully to a different kind of honesty – to joy, to pain.


Do not misunderstand these words: feeling is not the subjugation of intellect. Women are smart;
we are knowledgeable; we deal in fact and information. We simply understand that love, that
loss, that death, that anguish is also information – that it is not incidental that the sound of
children’s laughter warms, or that a husbands’ touch comforts, or that the frailty of a parent
saddens. These are factors to be added to every equation. And only once in a very blue moon do
they add up to war.


Women know early in life the joy of friendship, the richness of human connectedness. We grasp,
as if by magic, the evanescence of life. It is why we worry, why we cry, why we celebrate so
fiercely the things, the people we know to be important. There has never been a new mother who
didn’t lose herself in her baby’s eyes… and who wasn’t also terrified at the prospect of one so
small and delicate holding so much in that tiny, beating heart.


“What if…?” Mothers have whispered for all these thousands of years, “What if something were
to happen…?”

War ignores all of these things. But they’re true. Go look at the stars; watch the ocean; hear the
crickets. Smell the soft skin of your son’s cheek. Peace is true.


And I am a woman who wants peace. It’s not a whim; it’s of design.


Host Tag: Julia King lives and writes in Goshen, Indiana. She comes to us by way of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.

Homemade Gifts Gone Wrong

Holiday season is in full swing. For most gift seekers that means crowded parking lots, long lines and hours at a mall, but Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator, Julia King, decided to avoid some of the mass production and commercialization of Christmas this year. Instead, she’ll get back to the “Holiday Spirit” by trying her hand at something a bit closer to home:

Transcript

Holiday Season is in full swing. For most gift seekers that means crowded parking lots, long
lines and hours at a mall. But Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator, Julia King, decided
to avoid some of the mass production and commercialization of Christmas this year. Instead,
she’ll get back to the “Holiday Spirit” by trying her hand at something a bit closer to home:


Now, I don’t like to brag, but can I just say that I MADE my holiday gifts this year? Let me tell
you the story of my apple butter.


In the fall, when other people were walking through crunchy leaves and carving pumpkins and
going on hayrides, I was riding my environmentally friendly bike to the local farmer’s market
where I bought many pounds of chemical-free Indiana apples and put them in my backpack and
then rode home with hard, yellow delicious apples digging into my spine and under my shoulder
blades. I had to do this many times because my family kept eating the apples. Like snacks,
instead of future gifts. So, I had to make a lot of bike rides with a lot of apples sticking into my
back.


Oh well, holiday spirit.


But I finally stockpile all the apples and the cider – oh yeah, the cider: I had to drive to the
farmers’ market twice in the rain to get fresh, un-pasteurized cider. Okay, so then I have
everything I need and I boil the cider until it reduces by half – which takes a couple of hours, then
I peel the apples (which doesn’t take as long but gives me a cramp in my right hand and makes
me wonder if I’m developing arthritis because I could be, you know; I’m not getting any
younger). Then I dump the apples into the reduced cider and boil and then simmer and then stir
and then boil and then simmer and then add secret, exotic spices (okay, cinnamon), and then boil
and stir and simmer for about thirty-nine days, during which time I can’t leave the house because
the stove is on, and fire safety requires that I stay. Finally, when all the moisture is gone, it’s time
to put the apple butter into jars and “process” it, which is the worst part because if you do it
wrong you could kill people. And that’s always especially sad at the holidays.


So, you have to wash and boil the jars, but NOT the lids with the rubber — because if you do, you
could kill people. You have to keep everything warm, and then you have to pour the apple butter
into the clean jars while it’s still boiling and then wipe the rim with a clean towel so that it seals
right and you don’t kill people.


Then you have to boil it in the closed jars for about fifteen minutes and then when it comes out
it’s supposed to make a sound as it cools and that should mean it’s safe.


And when it’s all done, you look around the kitchen and see dirty pots and pans and globs of
brown stuff all over your stove and yards of apple peels and there, in the midst of this chaos, sit
three little four-ounce jars of apple butter.


And then you go to the store the next day and see that it only costs a dollar-fifty! And you curse
capitalism. And now on top of making your friends and family play Russian roulette with
botulism, they have to sit through the story of how you made their apple butter.


Oh well, holiday spirit.


Julia King lives and writes in Goshen, Indiana. She comes to us by way of the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium.