CS-001: Introducing the Canning Season Podcast | Why Home Canning is Awesome | Show Format

This is the Introductory Episode of the Canning Season Podcast with John Gavin.

Hi everybody.  My name is John Gavin and I want to welcome you to the very first episode of the Canning Season podcast, the show that’s all about celebrating and sharing the abundance.

Today in this first episode of the CS podcast, I want to tell you a little about me and my vision for what I hope to accomplish here with this podcast.

If you’ve not seen it yet, the Canning Season website has been up for over a year now.  You can find it at CS.com. I set up the site, and now this podcast, to pass on information and, hopefully, create a sense of community for folks like us who enjoy making and sharing home canned goods.

I’m 51, obviously male, and am broadcasting from my home in the north woods part of the country, here in Minnesota, in a suburb of Minneapolis with my dog Philly who’s picture is on the CS website.

I hail from humble beginnings having grown up the 4th of 6 children in an inner city row house in Philadelphia.  I worked my butt off to pay for college and ended up being the first of us kids to get a degree.  I went on to get my masters and a professional degree.  As a result of my hard work, I’ve enjoyed a successful career of nearly 30 years in the investment industry.  When I wasn’t doing that I also served for twenty years as a volunteer firefighter and EMT.  I became a command officer, instructor, and did a lot to get the next generation ready.  I remain hugely proud of my days in the fire service.  Incidentally, I became known among my buddies for the peaches and other canned goodies I make each year.

In so many ways, on so many days, I consider myself a positive and most blessed person.  Friends and family know me for how often I say, “The hope and healing starts here!”

I canned my first item in the summer of 2006.  It was bread-and-butter pickles.  I still have the ladle that got stained orange by the turmeric!  Since then, I’ve learned a lot and experimented a lot.  I also ruined a lot of stuff through the mistakes I made.  You’ll get to hear all about that and so much more through this blog and the Canning Season podcast over at iTunes.

Why Home Canning is Awesome

As I got into home canning, six themes emerged that bring me back, with great joy, to each year’s new canning season.  They are:

Immersing oneself in a day of home canning feels good.  I have an intense day job. No matter how much traveling I do, or how busy I am, there’s nothing like putting up a batch of my homemade peaches, raspberry jam, or whatever, to help me forget about all that.  It always makes me feel good.  Tired, sure, but that sense of accomplishment when you have a counter full of jars cooling off is just awesome!

There is a spiritual element to home canning.  Perhaps because it’s so closely tied to the the harvest, home canning cannot help but put you in touch with the rhythms of nature and life.  In that respect, it puts you in touch with something bigger than yourself.  Between tweets, texts, and annoying pings of all kinds, I find it’s good for the soul to step back to look at the big picture every now and again.

You control the ingredients that go into your food. In a world where some of the food companies can seem more like chemical companies, it’s nice to keep your food simple, nutritious, and chemical-free.

There is a social element to home canning that comes from the sharing of the same.  This one initially surprised me.  Now it gives delight.  I was a volunteer firefighter for 20 years.  While on active duty I was well known for the peaches I canned each year.  Friends and family routinely ask about what I’m canning on the hope there will be more goodies for them.  Much as I love canning -and eventually eating (!) – great stuff, sometimes I think I take more joy in sharing it with others.