#13 And attempt making jam!

For 22 years, I hated jam. Never touched the stuff. It looked like guts. Besides, bread was delicious enough on its own, why ruin it by spreading bloody gut-paste on it? But then, in the Summer of my 22nd year, I lived in England and that is where I discovered the joy of jam.

I was kind of forced to, actually - in Britain, they have this inside joke where they pretend they all like this thing called a "Full English Breakfast" - which includes runny eggs, baked beans, raw tomatoes, and black pudding (a little black hockey puck-shaped "food' that is made from congealed blood and animal parts - seriously. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pudding).

I can't tell if this is what Full English Breakfast looks like before it goes in or after it comes out. 

And so they make all the ignorant foreigners like me try this disgusting breakfast like it is some kind of initiation into British culture, fully knowing that it is absolutely revolting and secretly giggling into their crumpets at our gullibility. Anyways, when I fell into the Full English Breakfast trap, I quickly discovered that the only edible thing was the side of toast with jam.

But the joke was on YOU, British people! Because from that moment on I realized that jam is fantastic. In the following months I went into a jam binge, and I decided that homemade jam is by far better than anything produced in a factory. So this summer, I resolved to attempt making my own delicious jam.

I sure am glad I put 'attempt' in that original list. Because after three tries, I still have not successfully made anything that can accurately be described as jam.

The important thing is I tried.

I made the first batch with J after our journey to the Blueberry Knoll to pick strawberries. Everything started out really well - the fruit was perfect, J's mom has all this fancy jam equipment and stuff, but for some reason it didn't set and we wound up with a whole whack of strawberry syrup. It is still delicious, but it wasn't jam.

jamming pot 

I wanted to give it another shot, so the next week I went out and bought more strawberries, and I followed the directions on the little package of magic jam powder exactly. Somehow, I still wound up with syrup.

But I didn't give up there. I thought - hey, maybe strawberries are just difficult, so I'll try raspberries. They are less juicy, so maybe it will be thicker. Just to be safe, I added two boxes of extra special magic jam powder instead of one, but the plan backfired. The raspberry jam is like wet cement. You can barely get your knife in there without it breaking off. So now I've got 19 jars of runny booger-consistency strawberry jam, and 7 jars of raspberry-flavoured playdough.

In conclusion I am not very good at making jam, but I am very good at eating it.