Let's talk the holidays.

Yes, I know it's August, but it's not too soon to think about it. In fact, it's exactly the right time to think about it, when summer (and soon) early fall fruit are ripe all around us.

With a little time, some ripe (and hopefully, inexpensive) fruit and the right recipe, you could be sitting smugly with a cupboard full of gifts when the holidays come around.

Late summer is when canning was traditionally at its peak in American kitchens, though in Hawai'i it was always a bit more year-round and, in my youth, many people froze their bounty rather than canned it. (What I wouldn't give for my grandma's immense chest freezer, full of parcels of peeled and cut mangoes for chutney and solid-pack tomatoes for stews, and green beans and whatever else Grandpa had foisted on her from the garden. They always had kind of a running battle about the garden, with him neglecting to tell her that, for example, he was planning to harvest zucchini that day. He'd sneak in the back door, deposit a box of dirt-caked vegetables on the floor of the kitchen, call out, "Ida! Got some zucchini here!" and then run before Grandma could find the big kitchen knife. Then, no matter her plans for the day, she'd have to find time to do something with that darned zucchini or whatever.)

I digress, but not too far ... because this is the time, despite the heat, to fit canning into your schedule and get half your Christmas "shopping" done. Heirloom tomatoes are all over the farmers markets. Bananas have been on special sale in many stores. There are fields of pineapple out there, ripe and sweet. Guavas will soon be upon us, as will mangoes.

Plan a day at home: Spend half of it chopping and assembling ingredients, getting them cooking in a big pot.

The beauty of canning is you don't have to stand over it every moment: Get a good movie from Netflix, or order it on Pay-Per-View, relax on the sofa and check the chutney or ketchup or whatever every 20 minutes or so, giving it a stir.

Or maybe make it a family day: Have the sisters or brothers over and get everybody involved, chopping, cooking, stirring. Especially if you've got a source of LOTS of free fruit — which happened to me recently — many hands can make light (and fun) work.

Start out by thinking of yourself as a production line. Have your jars sterilized (wash them in soapy water, put them in the sink and pour boiling water over them), your new lids ready, lined up on the counter.

Pull out and measure all your ingredients.

Do your chopping or grinding or whatever.

For full-scale canning, you need some tools: a canning pot; a rack that goes into the pot for holding the jars steady as you process them in a boiling water bath; bottle tongs for lifting the hot jars out of the water. If you can't find them (and canning equipment is becoming more scarce in retail stores), you can order them online; a good source is www.canningpantry.com or the Ball or Kerr Web sites.

To be honest, I have none of these things; I make do with soup pot and tongs (not the safest way to lift a hot jar out of boiling water, I must admit). I do have my grandmother's funnel-shaped canning strainer and wooden pestle for grinding the juice out of guavas for jam, but that's the extent of the canning equipment I have room for. However, if your ambition is to become the chutney queen or king, you should invest in basic canning tools.

A large-mouth funnel is helpful for pouring chunky mixtures into bottles without a lot of mess. I got a really cool silicone one from the King Arthur Flour catalog (www.kingarthurflour.com; 800-827-6836).

Few cooking experiences are as satisfying (and, I admit, as labor-intensive and time-consuming) as seeing those filled and sealed full jars all lined up on the counter. Try it.

And Merry Christmas.

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.