The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook
by Rachel Saunders
Andrews McMeel Publishing LLC
There is something homey, comforting, and welcoming about making homemade jam, jelly, and marmalade and that is the feeling conveyed in Rachel Saunders The Blue Chair Cookbook. But the contents, techniques, and recipes are totally modern and describes Saunders’ long love affair with all things fruit. Introduced to a wondrous array of fresh fruits during her collage studies in France, upon her return to California, she began experimenting with making fresh fruit desserts. Not able to eat all of her creations, she decided to try jam making and thus began her intense drive to create jams and marmalades whose taste and texture she deemed perfect.
The Blue Chair Cookbook contains 120 original jam, jelly, and marmalade recipes accompanied by Sara Remington's beautiful color photos. Saunders shares her technical preserving knowledge and clearly describes and illustrates each stage of cooking and testing for doneness, and addresses a wide array of ingredient questions about individual fruits and types of preserves. Her passion for using fresh seasonal and local fruits, which require less sugar, is the basis for presenting the recipes seasonally by fruit, with the recipes arranged month-to-month. These are not your usual recipes but are creative and exciting and some have the addition of herbs and spices: Strawberry Jam with Aged Balsamic & Black Pepper, Italian Plum & Cardamom Conserve, Cranberry-Orange Marmalade, Early Girl Tomato Jam, Lemon Marmalade and Blueberry Jam with Mint.
Saunders’ voice is clearly contained in each recipe with added suggestions for variation, encouraging home cooks to prepare unique creations that express their own style. Also included are:
- Preserving: Process & Equipment. Clear descriptions and illustrations featuring each stage of cooking and testing for doneness
- An in-depth section examining different fruits and their variety from a jam-maker's perspective.
The Blue Chair Cookbook was a James Beard Foundation Awards 2011 Nominee for Best Photography.
Rachel Saunders is the owner and founder of Blue Chair Fruit Company and teaches jam and marmalade making. She studied France and the French language at Smith College and La Sorbonne˗Paris IV and lives with her husband in Oakland, California.
Try these recipes for East Coast Blueberry Jam and Children's Strawberry Jam.
Win the Book ...We thank Andrews McMeel Publishing LLC for sponsoring this week’s Cookbook of the Week and the FREE Giveaway!
To enter to win the cookbook:
Please email us at ContactKosherEye (just click on the email link), and put your name and the name of the cookbook in the message box. So easy! Giveaway ends midnight, March 3rd, 2013.
Congratulations to the Winner – Rivkah Tuttle
Buy the Book
KosherEye Notes:
Where to begin – what a fabulous book! If you love to make jam and marmalade – or want to start making them – this is the book for you. It is all–inclusive and contains everything you need to know on the subject. Granted, it is a large book but it is full of wonderful information. Our favorite find in the book was Saunders’ approach to glass jar sterilization. She does not use the water bath method but uses the oven to sterilize the jars – an old approach that she has modernized. We love this technique as it is so much easier and the end results are the same. The introduction, with its beautiful color step-by-step photos, is an education on jam making. This book is a treasure and a gift yourself, gift others selection – plus it is a "keeper" in our cookbook library.
Meet Rachel Saunders. Read more on jam making with Rachel Saunders and the Mauviel 1830 Hammered Copper Jam Pan.