Fruit Slinger

Did I promise myself I wouldn't make jam this week? That seems unwise. I should make fewer promises and more jam.

Monday I cranked out an easy one — green apple jelly, from the unripe apples I picked last week. Full of pectin, this was to be used as a thickener in the other recipes to follow. 

Today I made two sour cherry jams: Sour cherry with rose petals, and sour cherry with almonds. 

I don't know how I feel about rose petals as a food, but it was the sort of thing I couldn't not make.

Like black currant jam.

If you are lucky enough to find some wild black currants, wash them well and pick off the stems. Chop them, then put them through a coarse sieve, or puree them briefly in a food processor. Measure, then add an equal amount of sugar. Bring quickly to a boil and cook gently for 20 minutes, stirring. Pour into hot, sterilized jars and seal.

- The Fannie Farmer Cookbook

I walked up to another stand at Green City Market and picked up some black currants.

"Hey, you want to do a deal on these black currants?" I was hoping for a professional courtesy rate although — I'll be honest — part of me was also hoping that he would tell me no and I could do something else with my afternoon. Something other than making black currant jam.

Maybe I shouldn't have taken the phone call in the first place. And when I say the phone call, I mean the phone call a day or so before in which my friend called to tell me that David had made black currant jam — and if we get into who David is, I'll never finish this sentence — and that it was "extraordinary."

"Extraordinary?"

"Extraordinary!"

I need another jam project like I need a hole in my head.

Also, do you know how hard it is for me to write about making jam now? "Now" meaning now that Jamlady might be looking over my shoulder — well, looking over Bev Alfeld's shoulder looking over my shoulder.

Before I bought the black currants, I tasted one.

They were . . . OK. Not as tart as I was expecting, with a more complex flavor than the red currant with which I was familiar, and a slightly medicinal quality to them. I wasn't bowled over.

I bought three pints. This, apparently, is what I do with fruit I'm not sure I like.

At home, I cracked open The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

It didn't take too long to pick the stems out of the currants, although I did take the extra step of putting them through the food mill to remove the skins and some of the seeds.

Black currants are naturally high in pectin, a fact I discovered by looking around on the Internet while my black currant jam was on the stove turning into Flubber.

It tastes great, though.

Which reminds me: Black raspberry preserves with chocolate and fraises des bois are on the right path, but they need a little less chocolate next time.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, I'll be publicly thanking some people for contributing to my Kickstarter project, which helped fund the blog's hosting and purchase a new camera. Thirty people contributed. Can you believe that? I can't.

Contributions ranged from $2 to $150. I know about a half dozen of the contributors personally. Another half dozen or so I know from the Internet or the markets. The rest were strangers. I can't decide if I'm more grateful to the people who contributed without knowing me, or to the people who knew me and contributed anyway. So let's call it a tie.

Some contributors signed up to receive a jar of jam. One wanted a print of a photo from the blog. Two will be rewarded with tree-naming rights at the orchard. Some chose to receive nothing in return. A handful requested a shout-out on the web site.

It's that last group of contributors that I'll be singling out with a few plugs. But please know that all of you have my thanks.

I have a new camera.

How cool is that?

* * * 

Have you ever watched a Sky Full of Bacon video podcast? Michael Gebert does an incredible job with these things.

I'm going to suggest two in particular. The most recent one takes us to a fish distributor and explores seafood and sustainability. You can watch that one here. 

If you dig into the archives just a bit, there's also a fruit episode! You can watch Sky Full of Bacon covering Asian pear grower Oriana Kruszewski here.

And you should.

Thanks, Mike.

I've been immersed in jam cookbooks lately. Here are brief reviews of three.

Blue Ribbon Preserves

You can see where Blue Ribbon Preserves would be a conceit. As in, here is how to make preserves that are worthy of a blue ribbon, although, of course, you will not actually be entering them in a jam competition to win a blue ribbon.

There could be a cookbook out there with that conceit. But this is not it. This book is actually a guide on how to make jams that will — when you actually enter a jam competition — win a blue ribbon. There are long passages on exhibition rules, tips on how to label your jars, and an exploration of the Danish and American systems of scoring.

But there are also many, many good recipes and a lot of solid information on how to improve your jams. I can recommend this cookbook as a good supplement to the standby, the Ball Blue Book of Preserving.

Also, while author Linda J. Amendt is passionate about her jams and preserves, she does not appear to be insane. You will see why this is important in a moment.

The Jamlady Cookbook

Jamlady is crazy. How do we know that Jamlady is crazy? Jamlady refers to herself in the third person throughout The Jamlady Cookbook. Jamlady's full name is Beverly Ellen Schoonmaker Alfeld. So you can see why she does not refer to herself as Beverly Ellen Schoonmaker Alfeld in each recipe. But still.

Here are but a few examples of what I am talking about. (Notice my deft use of the first person.)

Jamlady has included this rhubarb-nutmeg recipe to illustrate rhubarb jam made with powdered pectin.

and

Jamlady has not fully investigated chestnut jams or chestnuts preserved in alcohol, as she cannot can chestnut jam in a RWB so that it can be sold at market and she has no liquor license to sell alcoholic products at market.

An RWB, for those of you unfamiliar with Jamlady's terminology, is a rolling water bath. It is what many of us would call boiling water. And again: Jamlady, for those of you unfamiliar with Jamlady's terminology, is Beverly Ellen Schoonmaker Alfeld.

Earlier, I stated that Jamlady is crazy. I need to revisit that. She may not be — she is probably not! — crazy. She's probably a very nice lady. (Jamlady, call me.) This book has so much good information and so many interesting recipes that I almost want to recommend it.

But it is extremely disconcerting to read a recipe — let alone an entire book — in which the writer refers to herself in the third person.

It's enough to make you lose your mind.

Take it from Fruit Slinger.

Mes Confitures

Though ordinarily I might hesitate to recommend a cookbook that I cannot pronounce, I enthusiastically recommend Christine Ferber's Mes Confitures. This is the book from which the strawberry-raspberry preserves with balsamic vinegar and black pepper were taken, and it's the book that inspired the black raspberry and wild strawberry with chocolate preserves that I made today.

This is probably not the first jam cookbook that you want to own, but it is a devastatingly beautiful and inspirational work.

If you're getting at all serious about jam-making or want something to which to aspire, you want this book on your shelf.

* * *

This isn't really the sort of blog where I talk about the restaurants I go to.

However.

The other night my friend Sarah was in town. For dinner, we went to Carnivale.

The food was fantastic. The hospitality was unbeatable. It's been a long time since I'd eaten that well.

Beyond the commitment to sustainability and locally sourced ingredients, what struck me in nearly everything we ate was the olive oil.

It brought to mind standing at a public telephone in Seville, Spain. I was there with my mom. A few years before, I had spent my junior year in college there.

Being there in college changed me. One of the ways in which it changed me was introducing me to olive oil.

Now, a few years had gone by and I had brought my mom there.

It was raining a lot and my mom and I weren't seeing much of the city, unfortunately. I was at the public telephone because I was dialing directory assistance. I asked for the number of an olive oil factory in Baena, a town about 200km away. That's where my favorite olive oil was made. The name of the company was Nuñez de Prado. I got the phone number and when I was connected, I asked if they gave tours. Not really, I was told, but I was welcome to visit.

My mom and I showed up. We got a tour from Francisco Nuñez de Prado. It was great. 

Somewhere in a photo album in a closet is a photograph of me standing in front of a stark white wall with the Nuñez de Prado sign over my shoulder. I'm grinning like an idiot.

It's the same look I had at Carnivale.

* * *

It is regrettably churlish to mention that you can still contribute to this blog's Kickstarter project — a Kickstarter project that is to my genuine surprise and utter delight overfunded. But there are only a few days left and so I am mentioning it one last time. What does an overfunded fruit blogger spend the money on? The same camera, actually. A macro lens. A flash.

Really, at this point, I'm not asking for money. But I'm telling you that if you wanted to contribute, there are only a few days left.