Garden to Table All Year: A Minimalist's Guide to Preserving
The content could have been covered in an Instagram Reel generated by AI, but a team of humans made it, and that's worth something.
As a writer in a digital era, seeing my work in print is satisfying in a particular way. I suspect as AI reshapes the world, the only way to create truly unique work that is not immediately rip-off-able will be to put it into print (or film, or canvas) and not have a version available anywhere online.
It will be a strange reversal of the last century if eventually the best content is in print rather than available on a screen. I’m not sure what I think about that at all, but it seems a plausible future, as creatives try to protect what they make while also still disseminating it into the world.
One thing I know: The longer I live in a digital environment the more I appreciate a unique or handmade thing. I recognize the irony of sharing these thoughts here, but here we are.
The contents of the little zine I just made could be covered in a single Instagram Reel generated by AI, but I think you’ll find it infinitely more delightful because I wrote the words from my own personal experience, and Jennifer drew the pictures, and Lib put the book together to be useful and real and beautiful.
It’s a compact 5×7 zine packed with six no-fuss preservation methods—from air drying and quick pickling to infusions and smart freezing—so you can eat what you grow, long after the season ends. No complicated equipment required. Just honest harvest hacks for the practical gardener.
I hope it lives alongside a little preserving notebook you pick up at an actual store, and put on a shelf in your actual kitchen, and I hope you jot notes on it and spill jam on it and share a copy with a friend.
If we’ve grown accustomed to bite-size information, this still fits the zeitgeist.
But I also think, it could outlive this moment if your grandchildren find it tucked among your cookbooks with your hand-written notes in it. That’s the kind of special that can happen when we create useful, beautiful things that are more than today’s like or comment.
If you’d like to get a copy, you can find it at all of the retailers below currently, or order it online directly from Lib Ramos at Good Printed Things, the publisher.
Forest Bound, Amesbury, MA
Twig & Tweed, Traveler’s Rest, SC
The Squirrel and Nut, Lansing, NC
Hinge Collaborative, Waterville, ME
M Judson, Greenville, SC
The Perennial Homestead, Omaha, NE
Methodical Coffee, Greenville, SC
Hedgerow, Pound Ridge, NY
Navanel / White Flower, Southold, NY
Stone Broke Bread and Books, Gardiner, ME
Luna La Mer, Brooklyn, NY
The Nature of Reading Bookshop, Madison, NJ
Frenchtown Bookshop, Frenchtown, NJ
Malaprops Bookstore & Cafe, Asheville, NC