We’re jammin’
February 23, 2009
I wanna jam it wit’ you.
High-five to Re-Nest for this Bob Marley-meets-Queen Mum party theme: jam. Yes, jam! We’re talking jam tasting, pals — a party bursting with the bite of summer fruits:
canned with love (or, perhaps, purchased at the farmers market) by the host. Just add toast and a jamband playlist (I’m thinking the Grateful Dead and the Hampton Grease Band), and you’ve got yourself a simple, Small, and cheap night in with the gang.
In these belt-tightening times, an inexpensive evening with friends is certainly Small, from both a community-building standpoint and, in the case of a homemade jam tasting, a locavore one. And, if you’re into tipples with your toast ‘n’ jam, take a tip from cheapskate extraordinaire Kingsley Amis:
The point here is not simply to stint your guests on quality and quantity — any fool can pre-pour Moroccan red into burgundy bottles, or behave as if all knowledge of the existence of drink has been suddently excised from his brain at 10pm — but to screw them while seeming, at any rate to their wives, to have done them rather well.
(Or, if you want to keep your friends, just serve tea.)
I’ll contribute my rare gooseberry jam (as tartlets, perhaps? or spread on fresh dill-and-tarragon cream scones?); I pick only 8 cups once a year from one medium-sized and very prickly bush, and usually make 2 pies, or can it into 6 1-cup jars. The pies were, people tell, me the best thing ever, as the elusive gooseberry tastes like nothing else.
And if you play “Jammin’ Me,” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, naturally.
Gooseberry! Hooray! Did I give you the Living Small Gooseberry Tayberry jam this year? Or did I hog that all to myself?
Yeah, “no youu dinn’t,” and as if it could be any BETTER than the blueberry-lime jam? Um, what, do you want my taste buds to explode and make my head fly off my neck? I can only take one “this is the best jam I have ever tasted” per year. I’m already speechless at the brilliance of that jam: ” !!”
Oh, thank you! It was the best of jams, I admit. I’ll give you the recipe next summer.