Purple

I've never made grape jam before. Then again, I've never had a reason to... But this year, as I was doing a little garden work at my grandmother's, I came across quite a few bunches of grapes growing wildly in her garden. It was a little like stumbling upon treasure. I knew the grape vines were there, but didn't think we'd find so much fruit.

Gavin and I harvested as many bunches as we could find... it was a fun process... each time one of us would find more grapes, we'd give a little cheer. That is until Gavin came across the first spider. After that, he was content to be far from the garden, no matter how much fun I 'seemed' to be having.

Although they look like blueberries, there were two varieties of grapes in the garden, so we just decided to put them all into the pot together. I didn't know what to expect, but cooking the grapes down yielded a good amount of juice... and the color was just fantastic.

With pectin and sugar added, we boiled and stirred the juice, adding it to our jars as directed. It looked a bit thin, but I was sure with some time to set, by morning the jam would be thick and lovely. Not the case. And because there is no reason for several jars of grape syrup, we opened each of the jars and emptied them back into the pot to be boiled and stirred all over again... this time with fresh pectin. The second time it worked like a charm.

We have plans for each of the seven half pints that this little adventure yielded. But just to make sure the end result was worthy of gifting, we had to open one jar to give it a try. Jam on toast... I'm not sure there are many things quite like it.


And if I do say so myself, it was tasty indeed.

And the stickiest, most beautiful, color purple.