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How much is that jam?

I have been staring at spreadsheets now for a couple of weeks trying to determine how much each different pickle and preserve I make actually costs. I have my sugar broken down by how much is costs per cup, salt by the tbsp, tomatoes, carrots, oranges, etc by the pound. With many thanks to my Excel Wizard of a friend Andrew Green who helped me develop a dream of a spreadsheet I am well on my way. Now I know where I need to cut costs and one of the places is JARS.

I love Bernardin jars. Perhaps it is nostalgia but every time I look at them I think about the raspberry jam my mom used to make or the pickled onions my family would make. So my first step when trying to make my preserves cost a little less was to reach out to Bernardin to see if they offered bulk pricing. The rep that got back to me was extremely efficient and pleasant when he broke the news, that yes, in fact they do offer bulk pricing. But you have to order somewhere in the number of 150,000 jars. Now I hope to sell some preserves this summer, but I doubt it will be anywhere close to that ball park. He suggested I give the manager at my local Canadian Tire a call and see if they could give me a break on the price that they sell Bernardin jars.

So I did. I called the Canadian Tire closest to my house and spoke with the manager there. Again, I was amazed at how friendly people were when they took my call or responded to my emails. Once again, very polite when he told me that there was no way he could give me a deal as they are only making about 15 cents on every 12 pack of jars they sell. He even laughed when he told me.

ok...so now what? I love using Bernardin jars but if I want to keep my costs down, sadly I have to find an alternative. A couple of weeks ago I went to check out an indoor farmer's market that I am considering becoming a part of and I ran into Hratch of Toorshi Pickles. I had heard him speak on CBC Radio about starting up a food business. He was kind enough to tell me that he gets his jars from Richards Packaging. One quick email later and I am sitting here looking at 7 different jar samples that they have sent through to me.

The cost is almost 50% less on the smaller jar that I use and 35% less on the larger jar. Now when you are talking .55 cents for a jar, it might not seem like a lot to shave off .20 cents. But it all adds up and the part that makes this such a no brainer is that they deliver. I can get a palette shipped to my house for around $20.00. I love that. No more trips to Canadian Tire loading jars into my trunk. No more wasted gas or time. Now I just need to find out where I can store 1000 jars. :)

Snowday pineapple jam

Yes it is the middle of February and even though our winter to date has been mild it still FEELS like the middle of February. If you live in a colder climate country, you know exactly what I mean. You are growing tired of waking up to the dark, having it be dark by 4pm, looking out your window at your yellow lawn and trees without leaves. Even on sunny days the light has a different quality in February than it does in July. The edges are sharper and everything is crisp in appearance, which only seems to amplify the lack of colour and life outside. You never get those soft, fuzzy days that happen only in the summer.

So this morning when I woke up to see everything covered in a layer of bright white snow, I decided what better day to make something tropical, like Pineapple Jam. Pineapples from Costa Rica are lining the shelves of my local grocery store, so after checking to make sure that the pineapples are ripe I chose a couple juicy candidates and made my way home.

I cut each pineapple up into very small pieces and put into separate wide bottom non reactive pots. Added 6 cups of sugar and let them soak for an hour, stirring once or twice. You will notice this brings the juices out in the pineapple and help dissolve the sugar.

After an hour, I transferred the pots to the stove. I wanted to make a double batch but chose to do it in separate pots, staggering the start time by about 15 minutes so that when I got to the part where constant stirring was required I could concentrate on one batch. The directions below are for one batch.

Turning the heat to medium and adding 2 tbsp of lemon, I stirred the mixture until the sugar had completely dissolved and then I added a small dollop of butter. I wasn't specific with the amount, but it was about a tsp.

Turning the heat to med high, I brought the pineapples to a gentle boil and then reduced the heat, covered the pot and let them simmer for 10 minutes. By now you will notice that the pineapple chunks have begun to reduce in size and the mixture has gotten quite liquidy.

Turning the heat once again to med high I brought the pineapples to a rolling boil stirring constantly. Added 3oz of liquid pectin and stirred again constantly until the mixture returned to a rolling boil and let it boil for 60 seconds and then turned off the heat.

Leaving the pineapples to cool for several minutes so your fruit doesn't float and then ladled into sterilized jars and put in water bath for 10 minutes.

Summer in a jar even in February.

All In a Days Work

Sometimes words are not required.

Let's keep it positive people!

All day long as I chopped carrots in the commercial kitchen so that I could turn them into delicious spciy pickles, the song that I remember from Sesame Street was playing over and over in my mind. Some days it is a positive feeling, like today. It feels good to break with what is expected or what I have always done and do something that is more of a passion than a career path.

But then there are the dark days, when I wonder what the hell I am doing. That was yesterday. While I sat at my breakfast bar trying out the pineapple jam I made the evening before I decided to catch up on some reading on my ipad while I drank my tea and ate my toast. I stumbled upon this article titled '3 Reasons Not to Start a Food Biz'. I should have shut it down right there. But as the saying goes, Curiosity Killed The Cat. It didn't quite kill me but it sure was a punch in the gut on a Monday morning.

If you don't feel like reading it, I will summarize in my own words:
- It is a horrible time to enter the artisan food market
- the market is over saturated
- margins suck on preserves
- farmers markets are expensive to participate in
- major retailers aren't interested in you
- your current job is easier

After repeatedly bashing my head on the table for several minutes after reading that article, I decided that the best course of action was to walk away from it and come back to it in a couple of hours and see if I could pull something positive out of it.

The first time I went back to it, I clicked through to another article listed at the bottom of this article which had tips for startups and pulled the positive that there is still room for people making good basic jams. I can make good basic jams. So yah - positive. But that nagging awful feeling still stuck with me.

So again today, I re-read the article and this time after a day in the kitchen, even with an aching back, sore feet and a whack of dishes still to be washed, I found a positive even more encouraging than the 'basic jam' positive from yesterday.

What was that positive you ask? Well let me tell you :). It was that this article focuses on people who want to take the road most travelled. But there are other "out of the box" routes that I don't think have been explored in the same over saturated way. This made me smile. This made me feel good about chopping carrots for 5 hours and having orange fingers.

So remember - when something comes up that takes the wind out of your sails, it is up to you to change direction or paddle for an hour or two until you come upon a different wind that will take you where you need to go.

Now let's talk Marketing

So when I am not chopping, stirring, ladling, grocery shopping or emptying my green bin (cause let's be honest, preserving creates a lot of green bin waste) there is a long list of things to think about. Things that sometimes wake me up at 3am and won't stop spinning around in my mind. Logo, packaging, getting better prices on ingredients, blog design, social media initiatives, retailing, getting more time in the commercial kitchen, liability insurance, which farmer's markets to attend, etc. The list is long and goes on and on and on.

It can be overwhelming if you don't prioritize, so I have shortlisted it to 4. Once these are well in hand, I will start to add in some of the items from above They are:
Logo
Packaging
Farmer's Market Table Display
Blog Design

I have asked my very talented friend Micheline Courtemache of Betty and Bing to design my logo. I can't sing her praises as a designer enough. She designed my wedding invite last June as well as printed them in her gorgeous letterpress print shop. After spending 18 yrs in Marketing you would think that I can write a kick ass design brief. Well usually I can. But when it comes to expressing my thoughts and ideas as it relates to something as personal as a logo for my preserving business (if you can call it that right now) I feel like I failed horribly. But yet somehow, Mich managed to grab the salient points and pull it all together into something that represents almost exactly what I was trying to say.

Well I have seen the first round of logo designs and this evening...in fact in less than 12 minutes, I get to take a look at the second round and I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am. This makes it all feel very REAL. Up until now, I have really just felt like someone with a slight preserving addiction. As I watch the jars filled with all sort of wonderful, fresh ingredients pile up on the shelves under my stairs I haven't been able to connect the dots to actually selling them to anyone. This connects those dots.

GULP!

The Lazy Woman's Apple Early Grey Tea Almond Jelly

Whilst traipsing around on the internet looking for something to preserve, I found an intriguing recipe for Apple Earl Grey Tea Almond Jelly and needing an excuse to go to David's Tea I decided this would do the trick. I love the idea of all of those flavours mingled together, but didn't relish the thought of having the apples hanging in a cheese cloth over night. To be honest, it just seemed like a lot of work and I wasn't in the mood for it. There are times when cutting up apples, boiling them and hanging them and watching the juices drip out over a 24 hour period is just what I am in the mood for and other times I want to spend a couple of hours in the kitchen and at the end of it have the satisfaction of a row of full jars on my countertop.

So sticking to the 'instant satisfaction- generally feeling lazy- but still want to spend time in my kitchen' approach I decided to alter the recipe to something a little quicker and see what kind of results I would get. Keeping in mind not to alter anything that could make it unsafe. You will see that because I didn't cut and hang the apples, I added liquid pectin. The seeds from the apples would have provided enough pectin for the unaltered recipe. So if you are going the hard core route you won't need the pectin.

When reading the name of the jelly I decided to prioritize the earl grey over the apples and bought a gorgeous earl grey from David's. Just look at those gorgeous blue flecks. It has a very rich aromatic flavour which you won't get from bagged tea.

Don't let the photos fool you, not a single apple was sacrificed in the making of this jelly. The apple in the shot was my afternoon snack. It just looked so nice sitting on the cutting board next to the loose tea. :)

Makes 5-6 250ml jars (Basic instructions for hot water bath canning can be found at National Center for Home Food Preservation website.

4 cups Tropicana fresh squeezed apple juice
1 lemon
1 cup water
4 cups sugar
3 1/2 tablespoons Earl Grey tea (loose)
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 30 oz bag liquid pectin

Boil 1 cup of water and soak your loose Earl Grey tea for 3 1/2 minutes. Strain tea leaves and put the tea aside. To keep it clean and simple, I used one of David's tea bags that I got as a birthday gift from a good friend of mine. Thanks Joa :)

In a wide bottomed non reactive pot heat the apple juice over medium heat. Add the juice from your lemon and when the mixture is warm add your sugar and continue stirring until completely dissolved.

Increase the heat to a boil and stir until just before setting point. Add the tea and return to full boil.

Add the almond extract and pectin, return to a full boil for 1 minute and then remove from heat.

Ladle mixture into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Wipe rims and put lids on your jars and put them into hot water bath for 10 minutes. Remove and let cool and allow jelly to set.

In anticipation of the first taste, I decided to make buttermilk pancakes for breakfast and this jelly was the perfect partner.

The Commercial Kitchen

I spent my first full day preserving in a commercial kitchen this week. When I first learned that if I wanted to sell my preserves at a farmer's market I would need to make them in a commercial kitchen I was disheartened. How the hell does one find a commercial kitchen? Well it turns out it is really not all that hard, you just have to hit the ground running.

My first stop was Craigslist. I looked in housing, under 'office/commercial' and stumbled across a couple of ads similar to this one. I got in touch with a couple of them and went and checked two of them out. Both of them were looking to get in the $15/hr range.

My next stop was to simply bottle up any insecurities I might have and walk into a local restaurant that I really like and sit at the bar for 30 minutes while I waited for the owner to become available. We chatted, I told him what I was looking for and he was intrigued. He promised to think it over and be in touch. Whew, that wasn't so hard :).

Then I did some research on local churches and community centres. There are actually quite a few with kitchens that would do the trick. Fortunate for me, before I could even begin to knock on doors, I heard back from the restaurant. The answer was 'yes'. And better yet, he suggested we barter rather than exchange funds - perfect.

The morning of my first day in his kitchen I packed up all the supplies I would need, and I mean ALL the supplies. I wanted him to not even know I had been there. Pots, measuring cups, bowls, tupperware, soup ladle, funnel, jars, every ingredient I would need, pot lifter, towels, dish rag, knives, paper towel, hand soap, timer. I brought it all.

I also brought him a jar of my orange onion jam with sage and thyme and in true creative fashion, he began to talk about the different ways you could use the jam. Some of them had never even occured to me. Within minutes he was making a pizza with the jam, parm, prosciutto. It was delicious.

I don't think you could have punched the smile off my face.