Best Wishes and Gratitude From Sticky Spoon

You people are so amazing. Really. Sticky Spoon is proud to say that we have just sold 108 jars in less than two weeks. 108! 108!!! Thank you for your incredible support this Christmas. People we never expected to be interested in our jam were buying jars by the CASE, some bought one jar, tasted it and called us for more immediately (how sweet is that?!) and we have already received wonderful comments from those of you who have given the jars away as Christmas presents. Needless to say, the reaction so far has been overwhelmingly positive.

So thank you, thank you from Angela and Julie-Anne. Thanks to Maxime Jenniss (and his assistant) for the countless hours you spent producing the most amazing jar label there has ever been and Toby at Metropolitan Fine Prints for believing that very small projects turn into bigger and better companies and for getting as excited as we were about those beautiful stickers. We are grateful to Andrey and Chris for allowing us to use their production kitchen. And of course, if we are going to go on like we are on stage receiving an Academy Award, we have to say that we wouldn't be able to do this without every single one of you who bought a jar, liked us on Facebook, tweeted about us, read our blog or mentioned our jam to a friend. And many thanks to our men who encouraged us when the production kitchen was freezing cold, when we spent all of our days off away from them, chopping fruit until two in the morning, when our hands smelled like onions and when our expected production of jars was more than twice the actual amount we ended up with and we wanted to cry. This little side project of ours is taking off and who knows where we will end up with Sticky Spoon but regardless, we are having a blast and want to keep going.

Now, the thing about making small-batch preserves is that we only get to make about 40 to 50 jars of each flavour every time we go into our production kitchen sooooo.....fast math will lead you to realize that one week ago we had 319 jars of jam in storage and now we are left with 211. Clearly, that is not enough. With our first appearance at the Vancouver Farmers Market in just two weeks, we need to get back in the kitchen and stir up some fruit (and veg--- we only have 11 jars of our Sweet Onion Jam left, can you believe that!)

It may be Winter and local fruit is a less abundant at this time of year but we have lots of ideas, flavours, spices and combinations in mind to keep us going until the first of the strawberries show up. We will keep making jam for you and we hope that you will continue to be as excited about those little jars as we are. Look for us at the Vancouver Winter Farmers Market on January 14th, January 21st, February 11th and February 25th. We hope that your holidays have been wonderful and wish you all the best for 2012. Happy New Year from Sticky Spoon.

Sticky Spoon is Open For Business!

They're heeeeeeeeeeere! Our stickers have arrived, all 2000 of them, in a tiny little box. I applauded in excitement, much to our printer Toby's delight.

The following jams are currently available for purchase:

Spiced Autumn Plum Jam:

Italian Prune Plums, Sugar, Lemon Juice, Cardamom, Star Anise, Cinnamon, Plum Liqueur

9$

Cranberry-Apple Jam with Citrus:

Cranberries, Willow View Farms Apples, Sugar, Water, Lemon Juice and Zest, Orange Juice and Zest, Crystallized Ginger, Cinnamon, Vanilla Bean

9$

Quince Jam

Harvey's Orchards Biodynamic Quince, Sugar, Water, Lemon Juice, Vanilla, Brandy

9$

Persian Peach Jam

Covert Farms Organic Peaches, Sugar, Lemon Juice, Saffron, Rosewater, Peach Kernels

9$

Quince Jelly

Mikuni Wild Harvest Quince, Water, Sugar

9$

Tomato Jam

Heirloom Tomatoes, Sugar, Lime Juice, Ginger, Cinnamon, Clove, Salt, Chili Flakes

9$

Pear and Vanilla Jam

Harvey's Orchards Biodynamic Bosc Pears, Sugar, Lemon Juice, Vanilla

9$

Sweet Onion Jam

(Limited Quantity!)

Covert Farms Sweet Onions, Olive Oil, Sugar, Champagne Vinegar, Brandy, Honey, Thyme, Bay Lea

10$

Please note that the jams above are offered at 8$ for the launch of Sticky Spoon until mid-January. Prices subject to increase afterwards. If you are interested in buying a jar, please contact us via Facebook, Twitter or email Julie-Anne at julieannecassidy@hotmail.com or Angela at angedean@gmail.com. Thank you for your support, we would love to hear from you!

Quince Jam and Quince Jelly

Aaaaaaaaaah Quince. We love you. We admire your floral scent and your unique flavour. And if we cook you long enough, Quince, your pale yellow flesh turns into a beautiful ruby-mauve colour and we just can't get over how you transform from a sour, bumpy, sometimes furry little thing into something else entirely: a sweet, delicate, yummy fruit.

But Quince, you are a stubborn little bitch and we hate you as much as we love you. Your tough, thick skin is almost impossible to peel, your core can sometimes be so big that it leaves very little flesh for us to make anything with and quite frankly, chopping you is just a nightmare (have you ever tried to cut quince into matchsticks? We don't recommend it.) Bad little Quince, very bad.

You put up a fight this year and we are still unsure wether we won the war or not. We are still a little afraid of you, Quince. On the one hand, we have many jars of beautiful jam and jelly that are so delicious there are no words to describe. On the other hand, we are left a little scarred from this jamming experience (Emotionally, yes, but also literally. Check out my left thumb next time you see me). As it turns out, making a batch or two of quince jelly and turning sixty-five pounds of fruit into jam is a totally different thing, who would have thought. We just hope that we will have forgotten it all by the time quince season comes around again next year because we can't get enough of this tasty jelly, despite our love/hate relationship with the fruit.

Now...... who wants quince jam and jelly? It really is fantastic. I guess we won after all. Sticky Spoon 1, Quince 0.

Please take note that Sticky Spoon Jams will be available for purchase this weekend, December 17th. If you are interested in buying a jar, please contact us via Facebook, Twitter or email Julie-Anne at julieannecassidy@hotmail.com or Angela at angedean@gmail.com. Thank you for your support, we would love to hear from you!

Sweet Onion Jam

We are pretty lucky that the product we source, peel, chop and boil on a weekly basis generally fills the production kitchen with sweet, fruity smells. That is, except when one of us casually mentions that sweet onion jam could be the next flavour on the Sticky Spoon agenda. I never thought that we would jar a product that required the use of goggles to protect the eye from a painful burning sensation. We miss berries right now; such lovely fruit to work with.

Why would we possibly want to peel and finely dice seventy pounds of onions you say? Trust me, it is not because we love the smell of onions on our fingers for days (weeks!). This sweet onion jam is just that good. Seriously. Brandy+ honey + thyme + champagne vinegar +the freshest, sweetest onions you can get = freaking tasty jam.

We want to put this jam on everything for breakfast, lunch, dinner and we have found that it is a surprisingly versatile jam. It has proved to be delicious in scrambled eggs, in gruyere quiche, on foccacia bread with gorgonzola and arugula, on pizza and burgers of all sorts (scallop burgers!), on peppercorn-crusted beef tenderloin and even stirred in sour cream as a dip for mushroom and cabbage pierogies. Yummy, yummy stuff.

Please take note that Sticky Spoon Jams will be available for purchase this weekend, December 17th. If you are interested in buying a jar, please contact us via Facebook, Twitter or email Julie-Anne at julieannecassidy@hotmail.com or Angela at angedean@gmail.com. Thank you for your support, we would love to hear from you!

Pear and Vanilla Jam

At Sticky Spoon, we spend a lot of time hunting for the best fruit for our jams and this week was spent shopping around for pears with the very best flavour. After much consideration, discussion with farmers and of course, sampling, we settled on biodynamic fruit from Harvey's Orchards at the Farmers' Market. Their Bosc pears were just perfect for the job, an explosion of pear flavour, hints of floral notes and a subtle, delicate sweetness characteristic of fruit picked at the peak of its season. We certainly are getting to know fruit on a whole new level but wether we are becoming fruit connaisseurs or total fruit geeks is up to you.

We proudly carried home over 50 pounds of those pretty pears (thank you Angela for almost breaking your back) but we won't lie to you, those tiny little things took forever to prep. It was worth every minute of labour because the results are, in our humble opinion, just perfect; a delicate, smooth and pleasantly sweet jam with a subtle hint of vanilla. In addition to the taste, the fact that we combined a large quantity of Bosc pears with a few pounds of Harvey's Orchards' red pears resulted in a gorgeous rose colored jam.

We both took a jar home with us and reached for a bottle of bourbon. A generous spoonful of pear vanilla jam, a couple of ounces of bourbon, lemon juice, freshly grated ginger and a few drops of bitters were shaken and served over ice as a one of the most satisfying cocktails we have had in a long time. The rest of the pear and vanilla jam made for a delicious breakfast over walnut bread and brie. We can't wait to share it with you.

Cranberry-Apple Jam with Citrus

Apple picking is an activity that we, at Sticky Spoon, look forward to every year. Autumn colours combined with the brisk air, beautiful pumpkin patches and corn mazes always make our trip out to the country a memorable one without fail. This year was no exception and, as a bonus, we brought back a car load of apples that tortured us with their amazingly fresh scent the whole way home.

100 pounds of apples, all of which individually chosen by yours truly, were just begging to be chopped up and cooked into deliciousness. We decided to combine apples with cranberries, also locally in season at this time of year, and created a nice, chunky jam with a ton of flavour.

After careful planning, research and testing, we chose to add to the apples and cranberries just the right amount of crystallized ginger and citrus zest for a little zing, but mellowed the flavours down with the addition of sweet vanilla bean, freshly squeezed orange juice and a touch of cinnamon. Needless to say, the production kitchen smelled amazing this week.

The result is a pleasantly sweet and aromatic Autumn jam with hints of spice and citrus, perfect for Christmas gifts. It has plenty of that cranberry zing to pair with your holiday turkey, but is soft and sweet enough be eaten first thing in the morning over scones and muffins.

This week, our jams are being reviewed by a jury for the farmers' market and we are keeping our fingers crossed. Our Sticky Spoon logo has arrived and we are looking for a company to print off hundreds of stickers. We cannot wait to stick them all onto our jars and show you the results. We will let you know as soon we can finally start selling our jam! We have been working on this for a long time now and have cases and cases of jars just waiting to be sent off to a new home. Thank you for reading and patiently waiting for jam, we appreciate your kind support.