Make mine mulberry

Remember the mystery mulberry tree?

It has led to mulberry jam!

The jam did not appear mysteriously overnight as the tree did. But it is supernatural in its deliciousness.

I have made a lot of jam, starting with marmalade. Like the mulberry tree, this marmalade did appear overnight, maybe not mysteriously but overnight all the same. It was before I was married. I kept all hours and I was up at 1 a.m., sterilizing jars, worrying about whether this stuff would gel. It did. I was born under happy jam stars!

But this mulberry jam.

I said to Howard, I think this is the best jam I ever made.

It is exquisite!

And irresistible. I find myself eating it on stale bread, even. Anything. I could eat cardboard with this stuff on it. While I am working on my book it intrudes on my thoughts. One minute it is all about Leonard Pennario and the next ... what about that mulberry jam?

I had never tried a mulberry before but they are kind of like mini blackberries. They have these tiny seeds the way raspberries and blackberries do. It is no wonder that Van Gogh and medieval artists, such as whoever painted that picture up above, immortalized the mulberry bush.

Also what I have found, while it is fun to munch on mulberries as a snack, it is better to save them for jam. They are better as jam. It is not even just the taste, this dark sweetness. It is the texture.  Just like in raspberry jam, you get this tiny touch of crunch. Ahhhh.

I did not even bother canning any of this stuff. Why bother?

We are going to eat it so fast!