San Francisco - SFoodie - 'Yes We Can' at La Cocina Preserves a Sense of Community Along with Seasonal Produce

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'Yes We Can' at La Cocina Preserves a Sense of Community Along with Seasonal Produce

By Meredith Brody in Brody, Farm Fresh

Monday, Jun. 15 2009 @ 10:59AM

Hedy Macferran

If the enticing piles of produce at your local farmers' market lead to fantasies about doing your own canning, a Bay Area organization is ready to help. Yes We Can Food is a community canning project housed at La Cocina (2948 Folsom at 25th St.). It offers hands-on participation for those interested in preserving, and, for the rest of us, the ability to buy the results. Yes We Can cooks on Sundays, then hosts evening pick-up parties the following Wednesdays: You can buy the fruits (and vegetables!) of the canners' labor while snacking on samples. At the apricot party last week, Yes We Can's Anya Fernald supplied not only apricot tarts, but the recipe for the buttery crust.

Work shares to Yes We Can's three inaugural events (apricot jam in June, cucumber pickles in July, and tomatoes in September) are sold out, but you can still sign up for a box of goodies, attend the parties, and meet and greet the cooks. We walked away with two jars of apricot jam made from difficult-to-find, supersweet Blenheims, and two jars of Helena apricots in cardamom-flavored syrup, all for $20. (Eight jars would have run us $35 -- after spreading some of the jam on a hot English muffin, we were kicking ourselves for not buying more.)

More photos after the jump.