Blog #13--I'm in a jam

Wild Maine Blueberry Jam spread on a Ritz cracker or three or four is a tasty evening treat.  Sour Cherry Jam over cream cheese on whole grain bread will satisfy me for lunch.  Warmed Apricot Jam basted onto roasted chicken reminds me of my mother’s “ginger peachy chicken” she’d bake every week for dinner.  All of these fruited vittles are part of my daily diet obsessed with jams, jellies, fruit butters, and marmalades.

                When I do my weekly grocery shopping, I venture down the aisle for jam with an anticipation that makes me drool a little.  Finding that special jam is a quest I’ve been on for many years.  It is my fervent hope that I will find something new to excite my taste buds with each visit to the store.  I feel the need for that little sweet treat as part of my evening ritual after dinner every night that I’m home, so keeping my shelves well-stocked is important to me.  Every evening I make myself a cup of chai tea and a plate with 3 or 4 crackers slathered with jam—the crackers are important as a vehicle for the jam, but the flavor of the cracker should not, and I repeat not, overpower the flavor of the jam. 

              I scanned the shelves at Shop Rite this week, and I saw something that caught my eye!  Royal Fig All Fruit.  That will do for this week.  I put the jar in my cart along with other items on my list.  I never have to write jam on my list—it’s a given that I will remember to get a jar, or at least look for one.  Some days I won’t find anything new that I want.  I didn’t say need because somehow I manage to always maintain at least 25 different jellies/jams/fruit butters in the house on any given day. 
                I just took a look in the refrigerator and found opened jars of fig jam, seedless strawberry jam, plum butter, peach sangria jam, 4 berry jam, sweet tomato butter (yes, tomato!), red currant jelly, and blow hard mustard on my jam shelf.  Wait!  How did that mustard get in there?  Well, I guess it’s time to clear out any non-jam items, huh?  All of these jams have been opened in the last month and will (most likely) be finished off in the next couple of weeks.  I rotate through all of my jam selections so that nothing goes to waste, and I don’t feel like I’m eating the same thing over and over again until it’s gone.

                I open up the storage cabinet to see the names of the jams I have yet to open.  My daughter calls my storage cabinet a “traffic jam,” since jam seems to be clogging up the shelves.  It appears that jam is the main staple in my house.  I immediately spy pepper jelly—which is really good when poured over cream cheese and slathered onto a cracker—maple vanilla pear butter, cherry butter, caramel apple jam, raspberry-cherry-cranberry preserves, apricot butter, and peach jelly.  Quite a few of these flavors came from a vendor at a craft show I attended last spring.  

              When I take a trip to a new place, the first thing I look for in the way of a souvenir is jam.  I don’t collect post cards—like my daughter—I don’t want another T-shirt, magnet, or tack pin.  I want jam!  I like my jams to be in a glass jar, Mason, or otherwise.  Somehow having my jam in a glass jar makes it feel like it’s homemade, even if it isn’t.  My best friend is an avid canner, and her homemade jams are the best!  I’m one who NEVER refuses homemade strawberry jam…it’s probably my favorite, even though I like to try new flavor combinations.  One day she gave me a jar she’d just made. I gladly accepted the gift and the drool was wiped away first chance I had.  Did I have to wait to get myself home to try it, or could I borrow a spoon now and have at it?  I asked for a spoon, no crackers or bread needed.  I think I ate about half of the pint jar before I even left her house.  Hey!  It’s fruit and it’s healthy and I can justify eating jam at any time of the day, but I had to jam on the breaks or else I wouldn’t have any of it for my evening ritual.