I stood in my steamy kitchen surrounded by glass jars, newly clean and hot from the dishwasher, a huge cauldron-sized pot of boiling water on the stove, and next to it a large saucepan of homemade jam ready for canning. It was about 104º outside on a late July day and it boiled hotter than that inside my non-air-conditioned kitchen, like a sauna, the sweat sticking to my skin. But somehow I didn’t mind at all as the aroma of hot sugary berries bloomed throughout the entire kitchen. It was the first time I’d ever canned or preserved anything and I was both slightly nervous and absolutely excited, like a…