One Day, One Jar

Small batch is term artisanal producers can use to describe the food they produce. Sometimes slow, careful treatment of the best possible ingredients nets you only so much bourbon or coffee.

With my jam it's the same way. In part because I am particular about the fruit I select, in part because there is some appeal to me in bottling an experience: being able to look at a single pint or half-pint jar as representative of a particular time.

Take apricot jam, for example. That was the week I met Dan's daughter Mia, a sparky kid who was haggling with an elderly Vietnamese farmer. I remember the slight cotton candy smell of the apricots as they slipped their skins and puddled into the silver pot. Eventually I used the jar for rugelach I made for my friend Kate's open studio. Though it was probably six months ago, her boyfriend Elliot fondly recalled those rugelach last weekend.

That picture up there? That's the complete output of last weekend's work. One jar, which is probably going to the exceptionally talented Shuna Fish, who seems like she could use a love note of an edible kind.