10 year yes ten years of Jam!
It only feels like yesterday that I took up the wooden spoon and gathered the hedgerow bounty and made jam. For those who know me, you will have heard the story of my wonderful mums influence on me. She taught me so much she was a chef and food was her passion. She passed on all the knowledge and secrets of the kitchen and garden life, to me with the generosity of motherly love. You may also recall my Jam journey was born out of love for my sister, she had a desire to eat something a little sweet packed with flavour as her taste buds were been robed as she underwent intensive treatment for cancer.
I started small and cooked every pan in small batches with attention to detail, nothing has changed I still cook every pan with care and of course in small batches with attention to the details as before and my overwhelming passion has not wavered. Picking and choosing the very best in-season ingredients. I still believe every fruit has its best day.
Each and every fruit ripens to perfection at a very precise moment in time, this is its best day, so too is it mine. These days need to be saved just as your best day at the beach is remembered with a single photo. Mine is captured in a jar, by grabbing my wooden spoon and picking the ideal pan and capture that flavour. I do this with every fruit, I capture its perfect moment, by understanding each fruit and identifying the perfect ingredients that make every jar of jam. The devil is in the detail! be it identifying the flavour combinations that go into that jar and those that don’t, to the instant moment after the dew has been lifted by the sunshine to pick the Elderflower at its peak. I am not only preserving the fruit I am preserving every best moment of that day.
During my journey of preservation, I have got to know the people behind the fruit farms, the production, the growers, the pickers. It’s been rather remarkable and very, very special. I have met Tony and have taken up beekeeping, I’ve created my own dreams, helping them come true.
So when you pick up your jar of naked jam be assured that jar is filled to the brim with happiness, with wonderful tasting fruit carefully sowed, grown picked and delivered to my kitchen.
So how will I be celebrating 10 years of jam in lockdown? I will be traditionally making a cake filling it with jam and serving it with lashing of cream and of course a lovely cuppa.
If you have any memories of when you first meet me and my jam I would love to hear them. Please share your jam stories and recipes with me.
]]>So, this week I would like to thank you for supporting me on my crowdfunding journey and ask please do take me up on the voucher of cream teas and or jam deliveries, don’t forget to contact me if you're undecided and I can help you with your decision.
So, let me tell you about the progress so far! I’ve taken down a wall or two I have taken out a bathroom and cloakroom! I am just about to lay the floor! So fingers crossed, in the meantime if you have any advise on building stuff let me know, as I am learning as I go along!
]]>I wanted to share this with you from @Elitzfoods. Because being kind and considerate can and does change lives. If you find that during this pandemic of COVID-19, you have a moment of time to share, no matter what it is, be it time to say thank you, or blog that recipe to share your knowledge, or even your skills, I urge you to do so, please pass it on. I promise you, you will not regret it. Here is what one simple act of kindness from me to Elitz that changed lives.
A few years back I had an email from a lady wanting to change and help the community in Nigeria. She was working in her family bakery in Lagos, where fruit grows in abundance, so not wanting to waste the food the local community were freezing it! However, most of it often got spoilt due to the electricity going off some times for days. So what better solution than to preserve the fruits and vegetables the old fashioned way in bottles and jars. This not only would create a solution, it would also create jobs and help the business support the community in many ways. So without hesitation emails were sent out across the UK to as many jam makers as possible to help Elitz foods and fortunately, one landed in my inbox and the rest they say is history. In her words is what happen next.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_mZBLqFOrG/?utm_source=ig_embed
I’m hoping that this story inspires you to remember to be kind, that you all continue to say hello to the passerby, you continue to wave at people isolated in their homes even without COVID-19, be kind to the person in front or behind you and of course to yourself. And always say thank you to the lovely guys and gals who have always been our key workers. So say yes to helping others, it cost nothing but a warm heart and a little time.
]]>I run around hedgerows, I pick, forage and prepare the delights for jars. I am at one with the seasons, the growing moments in the garden and hedgerow, watching how it changes, it’s magical to me. It’s all I am. This is where I belong, growing, hunting, gathering, and of course in the kitchen, that my happy place, it’s where I feel at home.
I love to sit back on occasion and reflect on the delights of the season. And tomorrow I take a step back and wonder at the magic of the world, right across the globe we all witness the equal Autumn Equinox. The day and night are the same length (12 hours) over the world. As us on the north of the world celebrate the harvest, whilst the southern side will celebrate the arrival of spring, the perfection of nature is really quite remarkable, it never fails to surprise me of its knowledge.
However it was this that made me stop and wonder at the connection of us all across the globe and how we all celebrate food and the harvest. Be it here on with our “very British” quaintness in Sunday church services collecting hampers of goodies, to hand out or in our school assemblies highlighting a need to share our bounty at this time of year. However in Italy they do it daily, be it in small hamlets, villages, towns and even houses holds alone on hill side they all stop and celebrate the weekly harvest delights. Anything from the humble chickpea, to the prized white truffle with everything in between be it soft basil or hazelnuts. Just about every little herb, fruit, vegetable, is held up and has place in everyone’s garden, and the plate playing an important role of nutriment and well-being giving balance to the harvest. Just like a mother with her family.
So tomorrow I wait in the morning dark for the first glimpse of the sun rising above the cliff tops and from behind the island nestled in the Solent. I will count my lucky stars and feel at one with nature and the world. It’s harvest time, a time of crazy busyness for me. Its not just a moment, I will celebrate on a day basis, the different fruit and vegetables coming into season and being ready as if by magic all at once!
The long days have suddenly becoming shorter, as if nature is telling me to preserve, pickle and gather in all the bounty. However my days are not shorter, they are long in hours if not daylight so I can fill my shelfs with jars of all sizes and shapes.
I just love it.
]]>A lot has happen in 8 years, it’s been jammy! I wanted to share with you when it really started, and it was in 1862! Yes 1862, someone in my family had the vision of writing down a jam recipe and fortunately it was passed on, and reached me via an original copy of Mrs Beeton cook book, my mum’s treasured air loom , something she treasured and loving looked after, with its battered pages. I loaned this book after the death of my mother just a few years ago. In it was this recipe with other’s from that time. I was overwhelmed and totally tearful and elated all at the same time. I found wedding flowers pressed and other memories, alongside cutout and hand written recipes saved for cooking inspiration, that had been stored gently and carefully between the pages, of this cook book. So I may have been cooking jam as a “job” for 8 years but in reality it’s in my DNA and I’ve been cooking since at least 1862! It’s what I’m meant to do so tonight without fear I shall raise a glass to my ancestors, but more importantly to my teacher and inspirational mother, alongside my sister. In this my 1862 year!
Finally I would like to dedicate this next year, and the secret new jam to Stuart Bailey 4th April 1949- 21st February 2019, a friend and a good man.
]]>An innocent question that stopped me in my tracks. My mind wonders and I am cross I can’t think.
I reconnect with the question for over two weeks, I can’t think, I wonder through the memories of dinner parties, the chocolate eclairs at the winter wonderland party , the apple pies with cinnamon pasty and slices of quince.
Am I going mad? I could cry as I don’t have a favourite, I have failed I can’t think of a single dish. I conclude that as her cooking was so legendary it must be that, that’s stopping me choose.
There must be that one? like to love of your life, you just know. But I don’t and I feel I have failed my mum, by not having a favourite. I’ve become obsessed with it, I wake up and wonder what it would be if I could sit down now and eat her cooking. I almost settle with the battered oysters, then the nettle soup, I finally finish on the treacle pudding, but NO there’s more!
Its only when I reach the quince tart that I stop dead in my tracks I travel through time and I’m in the kitchen, my mums smile fills the room my dad’s cheeky funny self is entertaining her, she slightly flushed from the warmth of the aga, and the air is filled with the smell of roasted pheasant, I can almost taste the potatoes as their slightly earthy aroma steams from the pan as they cook. A large green cabbage is on the side waiting to be chopped and added to the pan. The plates are added to the bottom oven and I catch the smell of a quince tart as the door closes.
The kitchen is starting to fill up with pans some on the heat some push aside I beg for nutmeg butter, to go with my cabbage and watch as she turns the squash in the roasting tray, as they jostle for space with the carrots. I feel the warmth of the room as it fills my soul with such joy. YES I’ve remembered it’s! My Favourite dish, I want to go home, right now, I want to go to Barland Cottage and lay the table, put out the serving dishes, stoke the fire and sit expecting while my mum brings the table to life. My dad makes a joke, and my mum’s laughter fills the air we giggle, after all, he’s funny. I can safely say I’ve remembered the dish its Roast Pheasant that’s my all-time favourite and something I’ve not been able to cook since my mum died. I miss my mums cooking, I miss roast pheasant.
]]>One of the plans for the garden is to link it with a charity project “A cook in your Kitchen” which myself and a few friends set up last year. Brief details listed below.
To help people provide healthy home cooked meals for their families
To help people reduce their weekly food shopping bills
To help households reduce their household food waste.
The project will initially be run as a pilot and fully evaluated to test the viability of setting up a self- supporting social enterprise. To train a team of home cooks to go into customers homes and help families develop their cooking, budgeting and recycling skills .To record via a questionnaire survey the customers cooking , budgeting and recycling skills prior to the visit and after the home training session.
If you would like us to grow anything for you or your like to visit our walled garden please get in touch, I love to show you around and inspire you to grow too. Or indeed help with our charity project please get in touch.
Jen X
]]>So now I make jam and the very fact you all wanted to buy eat and enjoy it well is nothing more than fabulous. Time has flown by and I moved out of my home kitchen, to one I built, started to keep bees, planted more fruit and vegetables, teamed up with the Chewton Glen to forage sustainably. So far so good.
I’ve lived and loved every minute, every disaster, every high, every low, they have all been fantastic. Although I feel that I may have lost the plot from time to time! But you, my friends, my children and my family have been there always encouraging me, every step of the way believing in me. Which means so much to me it hard to put into words.
So thank you all for supporting me in every way be it small large for helping me forage be it picking crab apples Carol,(Daisy cake company)or for growing them Darren Venables, to believing in my wacky ideas Martyn Nail, Luke Mathews, Leckford Farm, and of course the many bar tenders who have invited me in to help develop products cocktails and use jam in ways that made toast curl !
If I was to say I love what I do, it would underestimate the passion I have and my urgent need to cook everyday. I am always up early and chomping at the bit to get into the kitchen. So as I stop and reflect on the past five years, I shall share with you a few moments below.
]]>Blackcurrant Extra Jam a winner , so is the Strawberry. So in 2013 I entered the great taste I won 2 * for my Lemon curd, 1* for my raspberry and in 2016 I entered again with strawberry syrup and yep it is a winner with 2 * so just when I thought I missed the enter deadline. I managed to squeeze in with 2 of my best selling products strawberry Jam and of course Blackcurrant, into 2017 awards. and……..this is what the judges said….
“Beautiful deep blackcurrant flavours on the nose, a thick set, giving a deep, lasting flavour, not overly sweet, allowing the true fruit flavour to shine through. The judges loved the sheer intensity of fresh blackcurrant flavours, the quality of the fruit and gentle preservation.”
So if you fancy learning my secrets of great jam making come along to my cooking lessons at :
http://www.chewtonglen.com/the-kitchen/courses-pricing/exploring/spotted-potted-pickled/
]]>I stare and listen to the wind I can hear the seagulls I look into the deeping sky and marvole at its beautify, gulls litter the skyline standing out like cut out silhouettes, they coast on the thermals as they take advantage of the wind.
The sycamore at the end of the garden towers and I watch crows perch and shout out their ownership of the tree. I scan my garden and the children’s climbing and swing frames are like skeletons that are rarely played with now, but I hold on them, so to recall last summers moments as if its an insurance, that if frames stay I will not forgot the days. Each swing, bars fills my heart with their young giggles, but soon the frames will have to be re-homed as time moves and the very fact my lovelies are too big for them to play on them.
The whole garden looks cold, wind swept and lonely, or perhaps its my guilt of not really doing much with her this winter using the excuse that its too wet to walk on the grass. Its to wet to mess with her for fear of doing her damage. When really its my lack of time that has kept me away from the her.
I turn and the cherry tree is in need of a pruning and so are the other fruit tress, but dare not, as I see buds! This mild winter, has confused nature as it has confused me, what to do? I wait, and I watch I’m sure nature will let me know the right time. I pop out into the green house, I tidy and plan, I dream and image of what delights of the spring.
The day is here and I am now on my second coffee pot, and while I watch the world awake on the social internet marvelling at attention to nature and photos of morning everywhere and just how we the love of the Earth. I return to my cooking books looking for inspired post Christmas treats, it is Saturday after all, and as I read into one, my attention is held by “a Summers day biscuit” recipe with rose and almond two of my favourite things. I return to prune the roses, but with within minutes I am back in the kitchen. Its started to rain!
I need some comfort today and I don’t mean a Casserole, although an cassoulet would be nice for lunch. I dive into my cupboard bring out the rose infused sugar I made last summer so now I am going to make these biscuits and enjoy then when the children finally rise out of bed! Bring moments back of last summer into today.
The Book Nigel Slaters a year of good eating:
Find the recipe look no further than on pg 206 of Nigel Slaters a year of good eating. I will substitute the caster sugar in the almond filling for rose sugar and for the decoration.
I post the photos of the delight later on naked jam facebook page.
]]>Winter is finally arriving (hopefully !) and I’ve fallen in love with him all over again yes he is round, dimpled skinned, and bitter, the Seville orange or as its is in Spain the naranjas. This beautiful word I believe originates from the Sanskrit language meaning fragrant. If you can visit Spain in the spring, then you must each street is filled with the aroma or azahar, it is intoxicating and you will fall in love with a flower. So if you get chance go and visit such cities as Serville, Cordba and Malaga and experience the magic.
But now I’m in not so sunny England, I am dreaming of oranges and my mind can only think of marmalade making, and as most marmalade makers will tell you its about the process and rituals that make their version the best ever and so they are, each and every jar. Their hand me down recipes, generations old recipes, even new modern recipes, on line recipes and cut of of a magazine recipes, all make their marmalade special and I’m no different my ritual beings on page 50 of Nigel Slater’s Kitchen diaries II, its almost like a poem to me, I’ve read it so often. He is our nation treasure he tells a story that bring the recipes to life that you just have to cook them right there and then.
So I turn to read page 50 and his words fill my head and even without an orange I feel the zest in the air , I see the rose garden of my family home and my mum and while I smile at his misfortune at as the zest hits his rose pruned thumbs, it reminds me it’s time to prune the roses! Then my childhood memories leap onto the page with taste of marmalade right out of the pan, I see my mum in her rose garden. Its all perfect and I am so thankful to page 50, and so it becomes the best page ever written.
I’m a happy cook, contented in my kitchen, feeding the jars to be enjoyed with toast, in cakes in cocktails or even straight out the jar! Thanks to my mum. So be inspired get out to your local Waitrose and buy the best Huerta Ava María Seville oranges (the only supermarket to stock the organic oranges) and cook marmalade, take the time, and let the sunshine in.
A few facts about oranges!
Now where was I? Oranges! did you know that Spain exported around 150 million tonnes of oranges each year! That incredible and out of that an amazing 15,000 tonnes of Seville produced are exported to the United Kingdom for marmalade. No wonder Paddington left Peru to find his new home in London he must have heard about the fruit markets. (source http://www.fao.org/)
“The fruit is a type of berry and sweet oranges belong to the species Citrus sinensis (the bitter Seville oranges are C. aurantium).”
“Oranges are thought to have their origin in a sour fruit growing wild in the region of South West China and North East India as early as 2,500 BC. For thousands of years these bitter oranges were used mainly for their scent, rather than their eating qualities”.
First introduced into Spain more than a thousand years ago by the Moors, No puedo agradecerles lo suficiente!
naranjas sanguinas is the name for blood orange and a firm favourite of mine. Great in cocktails.
Check out my recipe page for recipes and ideas all about oranges this month.
]]>In January I moved out of my old unit in search of something a little more me, I look high and low and nothing suited, until I come across, a place that at the time was not resemble anything like a kitchen, it was a furniture shop!
I worried, I questioned and even argued with myself and I did just wonder if it was the right move. I spoke to the very nice man(landlord) Mr Stuart Bailey who said it could be anything you want, if your like it then go a head and change whatever you want to make it yours.
I looked and looked and walked around this little place, then I noticed the garden, a place for me to grown my own fruit, a greenhouse, and even a place for my next project bee keeping. So I signed on the dotted line and armed with a plan, a sledge hammer, and lots of hours learning DIY on YouTube. I set off to turn it into a commercial kitchen that I could cook in.
So here is the story in pictures.
]]>Christmas would not be the same without gifts, no matter what it may be. A little something goes a long way. I do find it so easy giving it makes me feel wonderful, knowing that the receiver recognizes how I do appreciate the moments when a kind word was said a little time given or a meal was shared.
However I would not like to overlook one of the most important aspects of my life the seasons, and nature. I feel that this too needs a token of Christmas thanks.
So not wanting to leave anyone thing out, at this time of year I pop out to the Forest to thank you to nature for providing me with berries and delights throughout the seasons.
So myself and my children will gather together some fruit & vegetables and take then onto the forest. (this is known in our house as the Forest fairy hunt).
We pop into the Forest and go in search of grazing deer, guided by the bird song, when we do find them, we gently whisper our home address to let them know where to stop on the 24th December. Once they have heard we scattering some bird food as a thank you for letting us talk to the animals. Our journey continues into the Forest where we search for the magical christmas. tree, a wonderful decorated tree shining in a bare leafless wood. We marvel at the tree and the magic of woodland fairies . Its a perfect place to offer our gifts so we replace the baulbes with the fruit & vegetables, and thank the Forest for its joy and gifts throughout the year. Be it either wonderful walks, hedgerow fruit or simply, enjoying the forest floor as a picnic table.
Each year our story for Christmas changes, but as our story changes our gratitude towards the seasons and nature grows stronger, as we continue to discover something new about our surrounding. As a forager we can only be thankful for this miracle, it is truly a Christmas gift I treasure each day. So thank you trees, thank you hedgerows and thank you wildlife for letting me gather some of your bounty. May the winter be kind and the berries grow. Merry Christmas to you. Xx
]]>If only it was that simple!
Now I do enjoy learning something new, something I’ve never heard off. Well recently I’ve been on a learning curve of the everyday stuff, like how to get gum out of a woolly jumper (the freezer trick on this material doesn’t work!)
But today while looking for information on something totally different I came across a new plum a sand plum! Intrigued I looked into this discovery, feeling like an early explorer I noted the marking on the leaves the fact it’s very much like a wild cherry plum.
I read harder I spent hours comparing images from its native land and my own foraging notes. Its true something I believed to be very British very much part of my jam heritage, turn on its head. Yes over here and over lovely!
So further reading lead to the conclusion that my tart, yet sweet cherry plum is in fact a sand plum native to North American. Cultivated by the Native Americans, many moons ago! But the cherry plum, something I’ve picked from the Welsh countryside to secret places on coastlines to hidden trees hiding inside the New Forest is in fact American? Can this be true?
The names keep going around in my head, Sand, Cherry, Horse, Beech I could see in my minds eye these beauties lining the skate parks of California, a new plum BEACH plum!
I was getting overwhelmed by the research. But then I remembered it has to be an English Plum not an American! How am I so certain well the concluding fact is this. Wild plums are in fact a very close relation to wild cherry’s so CHERRY Plum it is. Now were was I sage and plum jam!
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