No, it's not the shelves filled with colorful jars.
It's not the falling leaves, the stench of foul political ads, nor a date on the calendar.
To me, the end of canning season is marked by 2 things.
First, my pots are returned to their shelves and are no longer taking up space on my counter. These pots held pickles, sauerkraut, and an unintended fruit fly orgy.
But no longer. The oval Le Creuset cocotte that I bought in France for $40 and lugged back, the red Le Creuset enameled stockpot I found for $16 on uber clearance in San Francisco on a business trip, and the Martha Stewart Le Creuset wannabe I got a year ago for $35 (also on super duper clearance), all are back in their respectful places.
I love clearance sales. And France.
The second indicator that canning season has come to a close is this. My stove.
My disgusting, nasty, dirty, stuff-burned-on stove.
It takes a beating during the summer. I get to a point where I stop doing all but the cursory wipes because I know how dirty it will get by the fall. Why bother?
It gets pretty ugly.
I'm embarassed to show you.
This is the stovetop after scrubbing with an abrasive sponge.
No amount of scrubbing or chemicals will ever get this clean.
It's time to bring out the big guns. Karen from The Art of Doing Stuff calls it a "
With elbow grease and then an abrasive cleaner with bleach, my stove now looks much better.
And with the clean stovetop emerging from the gunk like the Phoenix from the ashes, canning season is hereby declared over.
I was going to say I didn't see what was wrong with it... then i thought better........
ReplyDeleteI'm not showing you my stove.....
No, no, no.... I call it a "Razor Squeegee". Which is an offshoot of the broader category of "Thingamabobs". Sheesh.
ReplyDeleteOh, sorry Karen. My bad.
ReplyDeleteI used the razor squeegee yesterday on my still-unfinished window project (arg). It's hard to scrape paint off of glass when you've got a cat and a dog vying for your attention.