Do, Make, Eat, Think

What I'm hoping for is the story of my life through the food I eat, in words and pictures. Is that pretentious? You have to take yourself awfully seriously to blog, I understand.

Anyway, without further ado:
I object to the whole slow food movement because I think it doesn't recognize how rare it is to have eight spare hours to cook a meal with. And how the have/have not division of spare time frequently exposes the same have/have not division of money. If you're living paycheck to paycheck, there's a good chance you work all the time and your job doesn't come with paid vacation.

I really firmly believe that everyone should have something beautiful in their lives every day regardless of whether or not they have vast quantities of leisure time. Four hour strawberry jam with strawberries from the Okanagan is gorgeous, but so are lots of things that cost less and take less time. Tiny, jewel-red local strawberries from the Trout Lake Farmer's Market taste like sunshine too, for far less time and money.

That said, when I have time in the summer, I make jam, because it's worthwhile to me. Because I like the feeling of giving away something that I made with my hands to my friends (not my family, unfortunately. They're a nurse and a biologist and extraordinary germophobes who balk at homemade wines and preserves).

On the weekend my beau and I were driving through the weird crispy hills of the Okanagan and we stopped at a couple of fruit stands, and picked up strawberries and peaches. Upon closer inspection I realized that the fruit stand woman had actually sold me California strawberries not-so-cleverly disguised as Okanagan, but the resulting jam was fine.

Like with most things, I don't really use a recipe, just loose proportions divined from trial and error, and kept in my head and nowhere else.

Strawberry Peach Jam

(needless to say, all quantities are approximate, but I'm not going to bother saying so for each one. In most cases, except for the particular alchemy of pastry recipes and technique, assume that tilde is there.)

5 lbs strawberries

4 peaches

1 1/2 cups of sugar

the juice of one grapefruit

Cut the tops off the strawberries, then cut them in half, and throw them in a very large pot. Peel the peaches by scoring them with a knife, and then blanching them in boiling water and then dipping them in ice cold water. Dice them roughly. Add this to the pot, as well as the sugar, and squeeze the grapefruit over the whole thing.

Boil it down until it is the consistency that you imagine commercial jam would be if you heated it to until it was molten.

Pectin helps to set jam. The grapefruit is there because it's high in pectin, and I don't like to buy expensive commercial pectin, or add so much sugar to compensate for the absence of added pectin that the jam is tooth-shatteringly sweet. Instead, I add the juice of a grapefruit, and along with the peaches and strawberries, it will taste like sunshine on the greyest January mornings; I promise. Some other combinations that I like are blueberry vanilla bean and blackberry ginger. In these cases I either have to add more sugar or commercial pectin.

Sterilize your jars and lids by leaving them in a large pot of boiling water for a minute or so. Take them out with tongs, and store the jars on a cookie sheet in the oven at 400 until you're ready to put the jam in them. Ladle in the jam until it's flush with the top of the jar. Put on the lid, holding the hot lid and jar with a tea towel or pot holder. Wait for the jam to cool. When you hear a loud "pop", that means that the jars have sealed, the jam is preserved, and will keep for about a year unopened in your cupboard. If not, the jam will keep for about two months in your fridge, and is still delicious. Some ornery lids just won't pop, and there's nothing to be done about it.

I think homemade strawberry jam is equally fine on a slow Sunday morning with fresh scones, or on squishy store bought and nutritionally vacuous bread with margarine after a long day. Somewhere in the middle of those two, we spread the first jam of the season on the easiest crepes - 1 cup flour, 1 cup milk, one egg, and 1 Tbsp melted butter. I'm fairly certain that will be the first recipe I teach my children, as soon as they're old enough to hold a whisk.