The Lesbian Housewyfe Says ‘Jam It All!’

The sharp citrus scent surrounded me as I sliced the mandarin peel into thin strips. President Biden’s voice continued while those slices joined the chopped flesh in a metal bowl. Several mandarins go into a pound, and the bowl was heavy by the time I’d finished hearing the U.S. response to the invasion of Ukraine.

When I panic, and there’s nothing else I can do, I make jam.

I track this particular behavior back to the year that we bought a fruit share as part of our CSA, and a staph infection blossomed in my wife’s leg.

In case you don’t know, CSA stands for community supported agriculture. These subscriptions provide a way for people to eat local and support regional farmers with their guaranteed purchase of regularly delivered shares of fresh fruits and veggies.

Starting with a box of cherries in June, a habit of canning jam over a weekend toward the end of the fruit’s viability quickly formed.

As my love battled the worst of this staph infection in August and September, when we didn’t know what was happening, and then through the surgeries and hospital stays and doctor visits and IV medications, I couldn’t leave her alone for any stretch of time. But I didn’t know how to help her.

And the torrent of apricots, peaches, plums, pears, and apples descended upon me with the promise of summer’s sweetness.

So I did what I could do.

Jam it all, baby!

Each box of fruit transformed into small jars of deliciousness. And when I experienced a lull in the fruity deluge, my sister-in-law, who worked at our local botanic garden, hooked me up with buckets of crabapples harvested from their trees.

My panicked efforts produced multiple jars of jams, jellies, preserves, and butters for each of my friends and family as Christmas gifts that year.

And the year after that.

So I guess it’s no surprise that, when the news began to emerge about the Russian army invading Ukraine, my leftover and frozen fruit suddenly appeared, ready to transform into jam.

My friend Chris gave me an afternoon harvesting his beautiful blackberry bushes last summer. Quart bags of berries sat in my freezer, waiting. With a low-sugar, no-pectin recipe I discovered online, my jam was on! I divided the small amount between two pint jars and shared one with my mother-in-law as a birthday present.

FYI, I used the blackberry jam for my mother-in-law’s birthday dessert. Instead of a full cake, homemade Scottish shortbread cookies got topped with a spoonful of the blackberry jam and a dollop of whipped cream.

Oh, mama! Happy Birthday!

Half a bag of slightly sour mandarins sat in a basket on the counter. Time for an experiment—marmalade!

After adding the peel and fruit to the bowl, I covered them with water and stored it in the refrigerator overnight for the peel to plump and the pectin to develop.

The next day, as reports from the invasion continued to roll through my consciousness, I added sugar and heated the concoction.

With any sort of sweet fruit preserve, especially if you aren’t using a store-bought pectin, precision matters. The moment between “I think this is almost ready” and “Oh SHINKY! It’s candy now!” is pretty darn slim.

So when I thought the marmalade was done and took a little out to test, and then continued to cook it for the two minutes while the jam cooled in the freezer?

No-no-NO! Why did I do that?!?!

Because stupid WAR!

The marmalade thickened into little jars of candied peel but in a “pry gobs of it out of the jar and gnaw” kind of way rather than the more gentile “pluck a strand and delicately chew.”

RIDICULOUS RUSSIAN TWATWADDLE!

I gouged a chunk out of one of the jars and plopped the mass on a slice of fresh, homemade sourdough bread. The sweetness complemented the tang and delivered a balanced, if overly chewy, bite.

At my wife’s suggestion, I added a little water to the marmalade jar and let it sit for a while. Why? Well, you know when you’re turning soil over for a new garden, and you have to kind of cut and dig at the same time? And then, when you finally get that packed mixture loosened up, you add compost, and the whole mix loosens slightly more, but you have to let the compost do its job for a bit before you start seeing a difference in the texture of the soil?

Just like the compost, water slowly changed the concoction from a solid into a gel. Viable for use on my toast, but it’s not a marmalade I’ll share with guests.

PUTIN RUINED MY MARMALADE!

Though I will make another attempt at it when I have extra citrus around. The bitter edge of this candy jam is hard to resist, and I’m smearing it across my sunflower-buttered toast each morning.

Panic brings out the preserver in me.

We shouldn’t be surprised. After all, Lesbian Law #1 is “Never Underestimate a Lesbian Housewyfe.”

Time to pull that elderly bag of blueberries from the freezer!