As summer draws to a close, canning is a surefire way to extend the season’s bounty– but doing so can be intimidating. Chef Ona Lee of Clara’s Canning Co. seeks to demystify this process for curious home chefs, and she brings a lifetime of experience, care, and passion to her trade.
“I have been cooking and canning basically lifelong, starting with my family,” Lee says. “My mother’s side were all farmers from Eastern Washington and Idaho. I started canning with my grandma very early on, and those are some of my most cherished memories.”
Lee first began Clara’s Canning Co. in 2013 as a way to remember her grandmother, Clara. After living and cooking in Seattle, New York, and Los Angeles, Lee returned to Whatcom County in 2018. She began offering canning classes locally in 2021.
Canning classes are announced seasonally via Lee’s Instagram and website, but if would-be students don’t see what they’re looking for, they are also available on request. The projects of the day are guided by what’s in season locally. Lee herself loves canning fresh, organic produce like apricots, peaches, and whole tomatoes– in short, the “simple things that really let the produce shine.”
“As of now, I only teach water bath canning, fridge pickling, and simple ferments,” Lee says. “In those classes we talk about freezing and drying, mainly fruits in syrups, tomato projects of all kinds, the vast umbrella that is shelf-stable pickling, jams/jellies, and ferments.”
I attended a group class in canning and fermentation armed with basic cooking skills and zero knowledge about food preservation. Our three-hour lesson took place on a sunny Friday morning at Ashmore Acres, an organic family farm based in Bellingham. Participants were able to toss food scraps to the chickens as we prepared three different recipes: strawberry jam, fermented pico de gallo, and a basic fridge pickle.
While I worked alongside five other students, Lee’s classes can accommodate groups up to eight. All attendees receive a PDF of instructions to take home, enabling us to bring our newfound canning knowledge from the field of Ashmore Acres to our own home kitchens.
For our first project, Lee guided us in mashing berries for jam and cooking them with sugar and pectin to form a deeply fragrant mixture (which one student said smelled like her grandma’s kitchen). Along the way, we learned best cooking practices, how to pick optimal berries, how to correctly fill our jars, and– perhaps most importantly– the ins and outs of proper sterilization.
The strawberry jam was canned using a water bath, a method that’s both safe and surprisingly accessible for the home cook. By sterilizing jars and lids in boiling water, canners can ensure that their goods will remain fresh and shelf-stable for months to come.
Next, when prepping the fermented pico de gallo, Lee used her expertise as a cook to demonstrate professional chopping techniques and even a foolproof method for squeezing limes without a juicer. Proper safety protocol was again at the forefront of the discussion; beyond sterilization, she emphasized details ranging from proper lid tightness to the use of fermentation weights. The result of our efforts was a fresh, tangy salsa ideal for a summer beach picnic.
The last project of the day was a jar of quick fridge pickles. While still stored in a vinegar-based brine, fridge pickles are not processed through a water bath. This means they are not shelf-stable, but decreased longevity wasn’t an issue at my house– I ended up serving the pickles at a Fourth of July barbecue, and the jar was empty within an hour.
All in all, Lee’s course gave me a new perspective on my own ability to make the very most of seasonal produce. And this is just the beginning of what Clara’s Canning Co. has to offer– in addition to teaching and selling farm goods, Lee is a private chef and is available for lessons on a variety of cooking fundamentals. Anyone with an interest in food production, self-sufficiency, and eating locally is sure to feel at home in her courses.
“My hope is people reclaim the idea that our home kitchens should be for production and not just consumption,” says Lee. “That folks can walk away confident in a skill that brings people together and learn to eat seasonally year-round by preserving the bounty our gardens and local farms have to offer.”
To learn more about Lee and her approach to food, sustainability, and teaching, visit her online or on Instagram @clarascanning. Bellingham, clarascanningco.com
