Bakersfield.com

The older I get, the more old fashioned I want to be.  It's a wardrobe prerequisite to not wear skirts too far above the knee and I figured it's high time to join the ranks and start making my own jam with the abundance of June fruits and berries.  

It all started with an article in the June edition of Bon Appetit magazine about the simple and pleasurable art of canning.  I was inspired, I was intrigued, and I decided to make my own jam.  I found myself at Murray Family Farms on a day where it was already ninety-eight degrees at 9:30 a.m. with one son whose idea of berry picking was to whack the vines with a stick, while the other was sleeping in his sling, drawn close to me and making me even hotter in the unforgiving sun.  

Before I could voice my opinion about the miserable plight of migrant workers, I was distracted by a question directed to the Holy One in Heaven, my Lord God, about whether or not He had even intended man to partake of the beastly boysenberry.  For if He had, then why, oh why, would He put so many blasted needle sharp thorns surrounding the whole of the vine and the berry?  And at the moment I figured it would have been just as advantageous to be barefoot rather than messing with the useless flip flops I was wearing, I collected the last of my two pounds of berries and went into the general store where I also purchased a flat of apricots. 

Not three days later, I had two jars of berry jam and six jars of apricot jam.  In sum, jam is my new condiment du jour.  I actively search out items to spread and smother with jam on account of the very real difference homemade jam makes.  Would it taste good as a reduced glaze on pasta?  How about as a topping over cheesecake?  It would be so un-chic to merely put it on toast, but the best way to eat it, as we have found, is a shiny spoon thrust into an open jar.  Nothing more, nothing less, jam in its purest. 

I have never looked forward to June until now.  Thanks to Jammy jam jam.