Watching the Snow, Thinking of Summer

While I sit here watching the snow, I am enjoying a taste of summer! I don’t hate the snow, really I don’t, but it’s been so gray lately, I am looking forward to some sunshine!

Every summer we rent a cabin – or, as the real Mainers would call it, a camp – on a lake not too far from the capital city of Augusta. Our friends, Anne Marie and Steve own a cabin – er, camp – on the same lake, and Peg and Lou have a place on another lake not too far away. For Hank, the real draw of the place is that he can hear the bugle calls across the water from the overnight camp he attended as a child, and listen to the loon calls as he falls asleep at night. For me, of course, it’s all about the food. I love the farm stands, the local producers, and, of course, blueberries!*

At least once during our week there, we head over the Steep Hill Farm to pick blueberries so that we can have a “jam session” at Anne Marie and Steve’s cabin. We always make blueberry, and sometimes jam from other berries as well, depending on what’s ripe at the moment.

If you’ve ever watched Maine Cabin Masters, you will recall that kitchens in these cabins are small and usually don’t have a lot of fancy equipment, and Anne Marie’s kitchen is no exception! She likes to say whatever you can make in her Maine kitchen, you can make anywhere!

So we get all our jars ready, pick over the berries, and get cooking. The recipe is no mystery – we really, truly just follow the instructions from the Sure-Jell box! Every summer, depending on who is around, the name on the label changes. Once, when Vicky, Anne Marie, Peg, and I (Liz) were together, we called it VAMPL Jam, which was terribly confusing when I gave some to my friends from Italy who spent a good bit of time trying to figure out what that word meant!

Inevitably, it seems we always end up doing this on the hottest day of the summer! But it’s wonderful to remember the warmth of summer when I open a jar in the middle of January and have it on a piece of toast or over cheese blintzes. And a jar of homemade jam from hand-picked berries makes a great gift throughout the year.

* I am also lucky to have a former student whose family has a pick-your-own blueberry business in Pittsfield. She and I have kept in touch and get together every summer to pick blueberries together. I always make several containers of Vivian Howard’s blueberry barbecue sauce for the freezer, which I’ve already mentioned on a previous post, the one about Cape Cod turnips. And we love blueberries so much, that I think it’s a pretty safe bet you’ll see blueberries here again with another favorite recipe!