The Maroon Diaries

I've often thought of making jam, especially when there happens to be a local glut of some fruit in particular. Or when I find a recipe for something tantalisingly exotic, like White Peach and Rose Jam or Blueberry and Blackberry Jam. I've often read through the recipes and instructions for jam-making, and visualised myself performing the actions described. At some point, however, I would feel overwhelmed or discouraged, and come up with a story about why it might be a disaster - anything from burning myself, to bugs that survive my sterilisation procedures, to failing to comprehend the setting point. Somehow I'd been feeling a bit inspired and adventurous when I went shopping at the greengrocers, and found strawberries for 69c a punnet. Of course I bought six punnets, and then I had to find something to do with them. When I found a recipe that used 500g of strawberries to make just one jar of jam, I reasoned that I had little to lose if it didn't work out. I was