Strawberry Jam Session

My family home in northern California had both a plum and an apricot tree and every summer mom would make jar, upon jar, of jam. While my brother and I were outside playing newspaper tag and catching pollywogs mom was elbo deep in fallen fruit, as they now say. She must have had fifty jars to boil, dry, and fill with cooked fruit. Then simmer in a bain marie; to seal up their waxed lids.

Finally, when I was old enough, I got to stir the piping hot fruit, thinking how much work that jam making business was, but worth every dirty pot. When mom cracked open the first jar of warm jam we closed in on her for the first taste.

For many years I didn't make jam and to this day, I still think of jam making as this big thing, more like an event. Who knows, maybe it has something to do with the time my brother and I ran into the house hungry only to find mom napping in a chair while the kitchen wall burned to the ceiling. The stove had combusted with piping hot fruit and sugar, and mom, startled by our screams jumped up and called the fire department; sacking the fire herself with a fire extinguisher. It was quite a moment and even the firemen were impressed. We may not have had homemade jam that summer, but we certainly got a favorite family story.

Over my years of cooking I stayed away from jam making. Too messy, too much time, stovetop fires and fire extinguishers... No thank you. It was my one mental culinary block. Until one summer when I made a camp stove blackberry jam on the Klamath River.  Blackberries were everywhere and friends picked a bucket-full for me to make a blackberry skillet pie. I baked a crust in a skillet in the fire pit, and cooked the berries in a pan on the stovetop. And I was struck by the simplicity of it. The simple fruit filling reminded me of mom's jars of jam.

I made jam all summer long.

So, when Harry's Berries, gaviotas and seascapes (two varieties of strawberries that draw a crowd three people deep at their Santa Monica farmers market) burst into season, all I could think of was fresh jam on toast. One basket of berries, a curl of lemon peel, a spoonfull of sugar, a splash of water and a small sauce pot, you can have jam in twenty minutes!

And my favorite is to hard-toast a slice of seeded bread, smear it with goat butter or goat cheese and top with warm jam... perfection.

And don't get me started on buttermilk pancakes with melting jam... A ripened cheese board... A scoop of creme fraiche ice cream...

Here's my Strawberry Jam Session:


A basket of fresh seascape strawberries are washed and quartered and heated over a medium flame with a tablespoon of sugar (optional), a sliver of washed lemon peel, and a couple tablespoons of water.  Be sure to turn down the heat to low after the berries come to a bubble. And you can take the berries as far as you want to go. Mine are extra jammy but a looser, fresher style is nice too.

After 10 minutes

After 20 minutes

On toast with goat cheese