Grapes

In my garage I have a box, a bag, and a giant pot all full of grapes. I know that the seeded ones are green Concords, there are a few purple bunches in there too, the red ones are similar to Red Flame, and the green seedless grapes are most like a variety I just tasted at One Green World called Interlaken, a variety that is known to do very well here and tastes similar to a concord.

I got them all from my friend Laurie's vines in her garden.

Now, please be very still and quiet while I say this: Max ate a whole bowl of red grapes. He hasn't eaten grapes in over a year. I din't coerce him, beg him or bribe him. Because that never works. We were grabbing our bicycles from the garage and he spotted the huge pile of grapes. I saw the glint of curiosity in his eyes and explained that those were grapes from Laurie's garden. He reaches out to grab one as though by instinct but hesitates, so I say (very casually), "Go ahead and try one, these are the kind you like. They're very good!" He does. I don't jump up and down screaming

MY KID JUST ATE A GRAPE@! YAHOO!!!

Because that would scare off my wild little beast.

He kept grabbing for more, like he couldn't help himself, because they are so good. So later, maintaining my cool air of not giving a whoop-holler-ring-a-doo, I say that he could have a bowl of grapes for one of his portions of produce. And he did. It's possible that's all the grapes he's going to eat for another year, but dammit, I'm happy about it!

Max said "Laurie grows good stuff." (He's been eating apples again and all of them have been from Laurie's tree!)

Now, what to do with all that bounty. At this very moment I have grape juice filtering ever so excruciatingly slowly through a strainer. It smells fabulous! Concord grapes are the classic grapes used for purple grape juice. Because I only had a few of the purple ones the juice is actually red. Straining the pulp out is important if you want a really good quality clarified juice that a picky child will be interested in drinking. Fruit pulp is obviously good for you but it will lend a browner look to a beverage. I am also going to make grape jelly for which you are supposed to strain out the pulp.

Here is what I'm going to be making today:

• grape juice

• grape jelly

• raisins

• pickled grapes

I am not at all sure about the pickled grapes but if you have the fruit, why not try it? I don't have the kind that is recommended for pickling but that doesn't mean I can't experiment. The kind recommended for pickling are the seeded muscat variety. The truth is I don't like eating seeds. I don't like having to spit them out either. I like my grapes seed free. I like my pomegranates seed free too (I spit them out).

The pickled grapes are supposed to be eaten with cold meats or hunks of pork. Since I am a vegetarian I will obviously not be doing either of these things. However, generally speaking, if something is good with cold meats or pork it is also good with cheese. I love cheese.* Cheese is a necessary food to me. It has been greatly vilified in the last ten years but I have to say that it has always agreed magnificently with my constitution. My only problem is over indulgence in cheddar which is the explanation for why I have a slightly annatto cast to my skin and vaguely resemble a giant block of Tillamook.

I am always mystified at reports of cheese constipating people. I can eat a pound of cheese a day and not have that problem. I guess if you aren't eating enough other good foods with plenty of fiber you may have this problem. Or, perhaps, some of us are made to eat cheese just as some of us are made to eat meat, while others cannot eat one or the other without unpleasant consequence.

That one time I ate a pork chop when I was a kid it sat in my belly like a cannon ball for at least 24 uncomfortable hours. (That was after the two hours it took to make my body accept it in the first place. The only reason I didn't vomit it all up was because I'm emetophobic). This is where it pays to listen to your own body and not assume that everyone else's body is the same as yours. I never preach at people for eating meat because I know that just like other animals, some people's constitutions were made to eat it. Meat can be unhealthy if not eaten with plenty of fiber rich foods like fruits, grains, and vegetables, but the same can be said of almost anything, and certainly it can be said of cheese.

So tell me, how do you like your grapes? Peeled by a naked virgin and fed to you on a divan while a minstrel plays you sweet little tunes? Or in a chutney to spoon onto your mighty hunk of pig fresh from the spit? Do you like to drink it clear and purple? Or do you prefer it fermented? Do you like to eat the seeded kind or the seedless? If you eat seeded grapes do you spit them out in a handy spittoon or do you chew them up and swallow them to scrape your guts clean of accumulated cheese deposits?

Harvest is starting in the vineyards now that the weather is turning. It's a time of heavy work in the fields and the resulting crush will keep much of my county busy. People will slide into their beds in the wee hours after back breaking sixteen hour days of work. All for wine. For love of grapes. For thousands of years people have been moving in these same rhythms. The equipment has changed but the rhythm is much the same as it ever was. I always love this time of year because it reminds me how our needs have changed so little, how people must still work with nature's schedule. To nourish ourselves we must bend ourselves to her needs, to her whims, and to her clock.

I love doing my own preserving because it keeps me close to nature's apron. It keeps me humble. It reminds me of how much labor it takes to transform the fruits and vegetables, the meats and dairy into food that can stretch into the winter months and through the barest time of all- early spring. It builds a deeper respect for the human ingenuity it took to allow us to stop migrating and plant ourselves in still homesteads.

Preserving my own food connects me with the great harvest that is happening right now all over this hemisphere. The gathering in is like one graceful motion shared by millions of animals and people. The air is buzzing with all the nut gathering, the grape harvesting, the threshers, the apple pressing, and the jars filling up with food for the pantry shelf. This is more important than anything else we know how to do. What is the stock market to us in the middle of winter when we're hungry and don't have excess cash to withdraw? What good is a house to us if we have no food to put in it? What good would a grocery store be if we didn't know how to fill it with food? People of industry may feel very important. CEO's of corporations may feel very entitled. But if they lost their jobs and had no money to buy food from the grocery store, would they know how to grow food for themselves and store it?

Not many of them. They would depend on farmers. On neighbors. On people like me who know what to do with a bounty of grapes and constantly seek to learn more ways to preserve the incredible gifts and treasures of the earth. Knowing how to harvest food and preserve it is a life skill everyone should have to learn. It serves our most basic needs. Money is only important because we can trade it for food. It stands in place of gold which was used to trade for other more basic needs. We can all live without money if we have a source for food, but if there's no source for food for our money to buy then money is worthless to our survival.

So while this country of mine is experiencing the worst bank crisis in history I will focus not on the financial disaster but on the possibility that it will inspire more of my countrymen to realize what is really important. I will practice ancient rhythms today and take heart that underneath all our industrialized trappings we are still just creatures of the earth who need, above all other things, the bounty that this season traditionally brings. We are hunters and gatherers still. Come join me in gathering and storing our treasures so much finer than gold.

Grapes are beautiful.