I confess – I collect jars…
jam-jars for sure
but others too
sweets, gherkins, pills
My partner imagines
I seriously culled the jam-jars
and truly I tossed a few
since diabetes and jam-making
don’t mix
But mainly I re-hid them
where she wouldn’t look…
© Andrew Wilson, 2024
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, whimsygizmo in Quadrille, aka De Jackson, urges us to write a Quadrille – a poem in just 14 words containing the word jar…
Fun! What do you do with all those jars? I’ve been known to collect a few – I like the look of glass – but I’m more prone to collecting bottles. Your poem makes me think it would be fun to collect some jars, paint the lids, and use them for all the things that be kept under control, rather than using all the store-bought organizers.
The jam-jars are in case I make the odd batch of jam – which I will mostly give away and just to keep my hand in and perhaps to mark the harvest season. I like to give away unusual shaped jars like spherical of octagonal ones…
Large jars are useful for making things like preserved lemons – so useful – if you’ve never tried it – do!
Hi Andrew, this made me smile. I’ve never made jam. It’s quite a big job.
Like getting a paint brush out for a decorator to touch up some small thing – making jam only seems a big job to those who don’t do it regularly. It used to be a faff when you had to put little disks of paper and wet acetate rounds and rubber band them in place but now all jars have a silicone seal which makes it easy.
1. Weigh say some strawberries and put in a saucepan to cook with the merest drop of water.
2. When the strawberries start to mush down, add the same weight you measured in sugar.
3. Whilst the jam is cooking, fill clean jam jars with boiling water and fill the lids as well.
4. Put a little of the jam in a saucer and stick in the fridge for a few minutes and when you can draw a finger through it and it wrinkles – the jam is ready.
5. Pour the jam into the jars and put the lids on tight immediately. Take care pouring out the hot water and the jam in as it is VERY hot…
(this is jamsplaining not mansplaining)
Glad the poem made you smile, Robbie – take the plunge – make jam…
Let me confess, I too collect jars of all sorts.
Since my son’s diagnosis of T1D, I too have stopped making jam.
This deeply resonated.
Sorry to hear that, Punam – my stepson has type 1 also and removing temptation and showing solidarity is the best way – good luck with it…
Heehee. I have a few jars myself. Some empty, some filled with shark’s teeth, seaglass, shells, other treasures. There’s just something about a jar…
I love jars too but I find making jam a big of a sugar project which I cannot undertake I love brining/pickling veggies though in glass jars. I also use glass jars for my plant propogation, smiles.
I never thought of jars for propagation, Grace – too worrying about the lack of drainage, but as a teenager, I used to make bottle gardens with the old-fashioned sweet jars laid on their side – Maidenhair and Harts-tongue ferns together with Pennyworts – the end result always an overgrown jungle, bursting at the seams…
I only make cranberry jelly, but I have a large collection of jars. Way more than I need for the amount I make.
I am not a hoarder – my house is not full of piles of newspapers, stacks of yoghurt pots – but – it is hard to resist a nice jam jar – plus they are handy for keeping old screws, washers, buttons, but I am really not a hoarder – honest!
Jars can be darned useful, and I hope you keep one step ahead of the missus in holding tight to them.
Oh! rest assured, Lisa – she will never find them and so if I do make jam (and we are in that season) I can give most of it away in interesting jars…
I have a friend whose significant other keeps pill bottles and keeps all kinds of unnecessary little trinkets in them.😆
I rest my case, Melissa…