Canning Tomatoes

Not much has been going on lately. I've just been busy everyday doing random things. Like picking tomatoes. I even tried canning them for the first time.

(Question: Why is it called "canning" when we use jars? Shouldn't it be called "jarring"?)

The first time canning went OK but I learned a few things. First: go ahead and really squish the tomatoes in the jar. They can handle it, and more air will be removed. Second: I should have hot-packed them. Raw-packing them allowed them to retain a lot of their air. (Do you see a theme here?) Third: I processed jars of different sizes and took out the pint jars at the allotted times while the quart jars were left in the hot water bath for a few more minutes. There's a reason you are supposed to hang the jar rack on the edge of the pot for 5 minutes. When you remove the jar directly from the water to the counter-top, the sudden pressure change causes the liquid to push out of the jars, leaving a large air space in the top of the jar when things cool down. This causes no problem as long as the lid seals properly but any tomatoes that are above the liquid level could change colors. However, this is not going to be a problem for me since I made the first two mistakes. There is plenty of extra room in the jars for the tomatoes to float in.

Next time I'll know to hot-pack them, pack them in tight, and don't remove them from the heat too quickly. Actually next time I'll "jar" them using a pressure canner. The processing time will be 10 minutes rather than 40 and I won't have to use lemon juice in the jars. Yesterday my brand new super-cool pressure canner arrived (we got it for "free" using credit card reward points) and now I'll just have to wait a few days for more tomatoes to ripen.

8/16/2010 Stanford Oncologist Follow-up

Today David and I met with Dr. Fisher, the G.I. Oncologist at Stanford University Hospital. We expected to hear nothing new today. And for the most part, we didn't. Firstly, he summarized the working theory that has driven the Tumor Board's decisions thus far. They are banking on the possibility that the tumor cells that were growing in this recent lymph node were "left behind" cells from the original surgery 2 & 1/2 years ago. These cells may have escaped the same time the cells that traveled to my liver previously escaped, and have just been hanging around while unfortunately surviving 2 rounds of chemotherapy. If this is the case, then there's a possibility that they have removed the remaining stragglers and this *could* be the end of things. We are looking on the bright side of things here, which is the right thing to do.

He also repeated that he does not see any reason to resume chemotherapy at this time. He'd rather save those bullets for when and if they may have more benefit. If this surgery has, in fact, removed anything remaining then there's no reason to subject me to poison. And if there are any roaming cells, well, let's face it, 2 round of chemotherapy haven't eradicated them so why should a third. So, we are going to hold tight for now and keep an eye on things. It may be that in the future, chemotherapy may be used to shrink future tumors and so we'll save it for times like that.

So, for now, no chemo and no radiation.

He also then said he'd like to rescan me in January and then in June (if the January scan is clear.) I have to admit that rescanning in 5 months feels strange but I guess that also gives me through the holidays to take it easy. Also, my recurrences have not come back all that quickly after each surgery. The first one was 10 months after the first surgery. This past recurrence was 17 months after the second surgery. (Let's not muddle things with the fact that the first one came back 3 months after chemotherapy ended.)

I will be discussing these recommendations with our original oncologist to see if she's comfortable with this plan. She can always order interim scans if she feels that I can benefit from greater frequency.

8/9/2010 Surgeon Follow-up

Dave and I rushed to get to our 10:30 appointment on time. Then sat around for nearly 2 hours. But that's beside the point. The real news is that my CT scan looks good. There's nothing on it that shouldn't be there. Also he said that the Tumor Board is not recommending chemotherapy or radiation at this time since all indications are clear. This is just what I wanted him to say. :-)

I have to wait a couple of weeks before I can do any exercise without lifting or impact. So, in a couple of weeks aerobic type exercises should be OK like elliptical trainer or bicycle. A month after that it should be safe to do things with more impact, like jogging.

He told me that the oncologist on the Board (Dr. Fisher) wanted me to follow up with him at this time so I will go see him next week, on Monday. I'm not sure what he can tell me that I don't already know but I will find out next week. After that I will likely make an appointment with the local oncologist who will manage my follow up scans. I'll know more next week.

Mutant Pumpkins

Last year I grew an heirloom variety of pumpkin called Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin. It's a very nice, small pumpkin that makes wonderful pumpkin pies. I thought I was being smart when I saved some seeds from one of the pumpkins for this year. What I didn't know is that squashes (pumpkin is a squash) and melons cross-pollinate very easily and create some crazy stuff. I realized this today when I posted a couple of pictures on a gardening forum that I frequent.

Here's what a young Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin is supposed to look like (this photo is from last year):

Here are two of the weirdos that I have growing on what are supposed to be Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin vines:



I posted that I'm confused because these two "pumpkins" are on two different plants and they don't look anything like Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkins, nor do they look like each other. I got a reply back that these look like they are crossed with other things. The yellow one perhaps got crossed with a yellow crookneck squash. I was growing that last year. As for the green one, I think it got crossed with something the neighbor grew. I remember last year he brought over a very large green squash - he told us the variety but I don't remember it now - and I bet the same bees visited his plants on the same day they visited my pumpkin plant.

Now, the question is this: How will they taste? And how will I know when they are ripe? I can probably tell by the stem that they are ripe. But as for taste: Will they be like a sweet squash?