Phew! It feels like, two days later, we're just recovering from the Eat Real Festival -- but what a great time!
We had so much fun on Saturday and Sunday talking jam with people and sharing our Craft Collaborations.
Saturday brought us a bread, cheese, and jam trio -- three different breads, each with a different cheese and jam. The gorgeous bread (pictured below) was from our new friend Mike, and the cheese was from Bohemian Creamery. Cheese flavors were: Capriago, Boho Bel, and Bodacious; jam flavors were Black Mission Fig Jam, Spiced Bourbon-Tomato Conserve, and Strawberry-Pink Peppercorn Jam.
On Sunday, we had the same cheeses, this time baked into delicious savory cookies by our friend Robyn. It was fun to experience the same flavors in new ways! Each cookie was a little different: a whole wheat cookie, a graham cookie, and an oat cookie. Yet another way to enjoy cheese and jam together!
Thanks again to everyone who came by to say hello over the weekend. We can't wait until next year's Eat Real Festival!
It's going to be a busy weekend for us -- our usual markets plus the Eat Real Fest! We hope you'll say hi and taste some jam no matter where you find yourself.
All Markets (SF: Noe Valley 8/29, Palo Alto 8/30; Oakland: Grand Lake 8/29, Temescal 8/30: Babcock Peach Jam, Lemon Marmalade, Apricot & Dolly Plum Jam, Bitter Orange & Cinnamon Marmalade, Nightfall Blackberry Jam, Blood Orange-Quince Preserves, Children's Strawberry Jam
And just a reminder that we'll be bringing Spiced Tomato-Bourbon Conserve, Black Fig Jam, and Strawberry-Pink Peppercorn Jam with us to the Eat Real Fest -- so you can get your Blue Chair Fruit fix even if you opt to go to ERF instead of your regular market! Eat Real has been kind enough to post a map of all the vendors -- click here for more info (.PDF download).
We are so excited and proud to be participating in Oakland's Eat Real Festival this weekend, August 27-29! The Eat Real Fest is an annual gathering of people in the Bay Area committed to real food -- eating it, educating about it, producing it, growing it. It's an amazing opportunity to scope out the ever-growing Oakland and San Francisco food scene. Plus, we're looking forward to delicious, hand-crafted food and drinks all day!
We'll be involved in a craft collaboration, combining our jam with some fabulous Bohemian Creamery artisan cheese and savory cookies. We don't want to reveal all our secrets, but we're currently making three different jams to offer this weekend: Spiced Bourbon-Tomato Conserve (a customer favorite from last year), our ever-anticipated Black Fig Jam, and Strawberry-Pink Peppercorn Jam. For more information, go to the Craft Collaboration page of Eat Real. While we're certainly excited about our offerings, every collaboration on the list looks utterly delicious!
Our very own Rachel Saunders will also be participating in the Eat Real Lit Fest on Saturday from 4-7 p.m. Rachel's panel will be focusing on "Making, Growing, and Finding Food," and we'd be lying if we didn't admit that we're a little star-struck by some of her fellow panelists. More information on the Lit Fest page; a great run-down of what to expect can be found on SFoodie.
We're looking forward to participating and enjoying the Fest this weekend! Can't wait to see you all there.
by Rachel,
August 26th, 2010 in
News
We're really excited for the markets this weekend, and starting to look forward to the Eat Real Fest in Oakland next weekend!
All Markets (Oakland: Grand Lake 8/21, Temescal 8/22 and SF: Noe Valley 8/21, Palo Alto 8/22): Strawberry Jam with Plum Brandy and Maraschino, English Marmalade, Mariposa Plum Jam, Meyer Lemon-Pink Grapefruit Marmalade, Early Summer Peach Jam, Strawberry-Blood Orange Marmalade with Rosemary, Blood Orange-Quince Preserves
We love giving out samples of the delicious flavors and chatting about jam and how wonderful summer produce is. Please stop by and say hello!
by Rachel,
August 20th, 2010 in
News
Check out this amazing interview with our favorite photographer, Sara Remington: http://lettuceeatkale.com/2010/photographer-sara-remington-on-shooting-food/
We were lucky enough to have Sara as our photographer for The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook, and every single image in the book is absolutely stunning. Some of her photos are also featured on the postcards we hand out at our farmers' market stands. We can't tell you how frequently people comment on the gorgeous photography and ask to take a card to display in their home!
The whole interview's great, and we especially what Sara has to say about the stories food can tell:
I don’t want my photos to just be another pretty image. I want them to have personality and tell a story.
Take this peach. I want you to think about where it was grown, when it was picked, and how it might taste. And I want it to evoke memories of, say, when you were a child and your mom made peach cobbler, or the feeling of peach juice running down your face, or a summer you loved, or picking fresh fruit from a farm, or whatever the fruit brings to mind.
We couldn't have said it better ourselves! Please click here for more of Sara Remington's beautiful work.
Did you know that Blue Chair Fruit offers jam and marmalade classes? Over the past few months, we've started offering classes at our kitchen, and we're loving the opportunity to connect with fellow jam-lovers. Nothing makes Rachel happier than having one of her students come to the markets to enthusiastically show her their latest jam creation!
These classes have been filling up quickly, especially now that we're getting into the heart of preserve-making season. We keep the classes at around seven people so that every student gets a lot of hands-on experience and the opportunity to ask Rachel a lot of jam questions. There are still a few spaces left in each of the classes for this weekend: Jam 101 on Friday, August 6th from 4-9 pm, and Flavor Construction: Strawberry Jam on Sunday, August 8th from 4-9 pm. For more information on classes, click through to our Classes page.
See you soon!
ETA: Ruh-roh! Turns out our sources were wrong and the FoodCrafters episode airs NEXT Monday, August 9. Sorry to be blasting y'all with misinformation.
Just a reminder that Rachel's FoodCrafters episode premiers this coming Monday, August 2nd on the Cooking Channel at 10p EST/ 7p Pacific! For more information, you can go to the FoodCrafters website.
We can't wait to watch the episode, and we hope you'll tune in, too!
We're always excited when we get to bring our favorite summer jams to the markets. What can we say? We really love dark berries and stone fruit.
So get those taste buds warmed up! In the interest of helping you think about which yummy flavors you want to taste at this weekend's markets, here's a list of the flavors we'll be featuring this week.
San Francisco markets (Noe Valley 7/24, Palo Alto 7/25, Haight 7/28):
Golden Apricot Jam, English Marmalade, Nightfall Blackberry Jam, Lemon-Pink Grapefruit Marmalade, Strawberry-Rose Jam, Orange Pucker Citron Marmalade, Blood Orange-Quince Preserves, Strawberry-Meyer Lemon Marmalade
Oakland Markets (Grand Lake 7/24, Temescal 7/25):
Red Raspberry-Strawberry Jam, Silver Three-Fruit Marmalade, Blood Orange-Quince Preserves with Rose, English Marmalade, Golden Apricot Jam, Lemon-Pink Grapefruit Marmalade, Nightfall Blackberry Jam
As always, we're happy to take requests for jams and marmalades you just have to have. Just ask at the market, and we'll bring your favorite flavor the next week.
Can't wait to see your smiling faces!
Check out the beautiful Strawberry Jam on French Toast our friend Zo enjoyed after her Blue Chair Fruit jam class this past Sunday! Our classes are fun, delicious, and educational! Sign up now!
We are so excited to see the first proofs of Rachel's gorgeous new cookbook! This two-year process has been extraordinarily fun and enriching, and we can't wait for you to see the book. We will be offering pre-orders for the book on our Blue Chair Boutique page soon... stay tuned!
In other news, we just went Bears lime picking at our friend Deborah's house a few days ago, and are in the midst of whipping up some fabulously delicious Coriander-Orange Marmalade. Secret ingredient? Limes! For another marmalade featuring this delicious fruit, check out our Silver Three-Fruit Marmalade, in which Deborah's limes are combined with our favorite Lisbon lemons and a touch of bergamot. Yum!
