Preserve @ Home offers even more lessons for canners

If all of this talk about canning classes just makes you yearn for more information, you’re in luck.

There are online classes available through the University of Idaho Extension office.

Bonner County extension educator Carol Hampton started Preserve @ Home in 2004 because she was having trouble recruiting people for the preservation classes. It was also harder for the master food preservers she trained to find volunteer opportunities.

“I was finding more and more that people just wanted it for their personal use,” she said.

Preserve @ Home is designed to teach people how to make high-quality preserved foods and understand the science behind food preservation and food safety.

“When I was a young canner, I didn’t know the whys of canning … so I cut corners,” Hampton said. “Now I know that cutting some corners are deadly mistakes.”

The classes are $35 and can be taken online using the University of Idaho Blackboard software. Lessons include test that can be downloaded or printed, an online bulletin board for discussion, real time chats with classmates and a quiz.

Preserve @ Home can also be taken as a correspondence course for those who don’t have internet access.

For more information about the program or to get a brochure, contact Hampton at champton@uidaho.edu or call (208) 267-3235.

Author to sign new book

Le Cordon Bleu Paris graduate Kathleen Flinn will appear at Auntie’s Bookstore on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. to present her new book, “The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry” (Penguin Books, $15)

The corporate middle manager cashed in her savings and moved to Paris to attend the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu cooking school after her boss eliminated her job.

The story of her journey through the school and French culture and her new life is punctuated with recipes from Le Cordon Bleu.