Jammin' Jammin' My favorite part of summer is making jam. My jammin' buddy is an ex-neighbor whom I rarely see during the school year when kid and school activities drag us in different directions. But when strawberries begin to ripen so do our plans. We remember the sweetest berries, the best jam tastes and textures, when fruits ripen, and how far we drove to secure our fruit.
Locales change from year to year.
When we first began berrying we trekked to Mr. Brook's fields in Efland. I always called it, Elfland, which somehow evoked the magic of our berry journeys. Mr. Brooks once taught berry making at NC State and his farm had it all. A small sunlit lake was bordered by perfectly trellised raspberries vines on one side and bushes tall and fat with almost thumb-sized blueberries on the other. Some days were filled with quite talks murmured with my friend across the row of berries as we picked.