Jam class - learn how to make a great berry jam

I will be conducting a jam making class in Pennsylvania at Terrain at Styers - http://styers.shopterrain.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/calendar.month/month/8/year/2010
Maybe worth the trip to Pennsylvania - the class will be easy and delicious - and Terrain is a great store - an a new concept store for the home - an off-shoot of Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters. Beautiful stuff for the house and the garden and then there are the jams.

Blueberry Jam - pilgrimage to the source

Every year I visit my friend Nancy Harmon Jenkins in Maine to make, celebrate and wallow (figuratively mostly) in the annual arrival of the tiny Maine blueberries. This morning is one of those warm sparkly Maine mornings and the abundance of the little blueberries is apparent - now in a bowl at Nancy's table - later in Bonnie's Blueberry Jam and Bonnie's Black & Blue.

Here is the simple Blueberry jam recipe:

6 Lbs blueberries
3 lbs (or less to taste)sugar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

Put all the ingredients in a pot - one with low side is best so the cooking steam evaporates- and cook until the mixture foams, subsides and then thickens slightly. Test the gelling point of the mixture in one of two ways: drop some from a spoon and two thick drops should form rather than run off the spoon in a stream or drop some on a chilled plate, wait a minute, then push it to see if it wrinkles.

Yum!

Sour Cherry preserves for Bonnie's Jams- finally!

Some years it seems as if summer will never arrive. And I only know the seasons by the fruits for jam and if sour cherries are in the market, I know the summer is launched! But pain often accompanies pleasure and cherries, like life, come with pits. I may be too philosophical here but try facing a large batch of cherries with pits. A task that looms gloomy, messy and large. The preserves have an alchemy about them - the cherries are light red not the deep red of the usual supermarket variety. After the pitting and the first stages of cooking the batch is deep red, inte- nse, slightly sweet but also a little bitter. Worth the work and the wait. Like life most of the time.

Seduced by figs

I spotted the first June figs at Russo's and they were almost good enough for my fig conserve so checking back ASAP. I was in the midst of a pepper jelly frenzy - of course everyone must know what that is like. I cut up tons of dark red shiny peppers and mix them up with tiny yellow habaneros and do some other stuff I can't share and out comes the shiny gorgeous reddish orange jelly. I love it with cheddar on a sandwich and grilled tiny lamp chops.
On other non-jam fronts has anyone tried Lark's chocolate cookies? I think they are called cha chas or something - the cookies are a seductive deep dark chocolate with a shot of chili that creates the most amazing mouthful of zing - kinda like my Red Pepper Jelly which is why they came to mind. Find them! Buy them!! and you might also get the Red pepper jelly while you are at it.

Pearberry or Pear Berry fall thoughts

I am ruminating on a new jam - thinking fall - cool days, gold leaves - hard to go there but thinking flavors. On Crete Nancy Jenkins and I talked about using pears, cranberries, late plums and early oranges. The current thinking is about pears & cranberries. The questions is the name: Pear Berry? Pearberry? Pearnberry? Thoughts?

Jam wanted!

I love when someone I don't know emails requesting a jam flavor - so now I have to make more Plum Valencia jam for this person. I am thinking of changing the name to Harvest Plum but unsure - I must do a survey but who to ask....I love this time of year when all the new fruits start creeping into the markets. And I love the magic of turning them into a neat beautiful jar of jam - I think of this process as a kind of alchemy - I think life can be managed this way or maybe an illusion? Make everything look good and it feels good? How shallow, trivial and true at the same time. Still thinking of Crete. I was reminded of Milea the tiny mountain village on Crete - fragrant, simple and beautiful. I could make great jam there....

Bonnie's Jams

Love making the first skinny rhubarb into jam with some big fat California strawberries. Whatever else could make me happy - ok getting 40 cases of Pepper Jelly made and out the door headed to lots of stores.
Still thinking of Crete - wish I could do something with the fantastic olive oil I brought back - so I am bringing back a cute student who is coming to work on an economics project - the olive oil tie-in? His family owns Biolea - an extraordinary organic olive oil mill in the the hills of Crete. I am not really bringing him back but he is traveling here and happily I found him a place to stay.