I make preserves at home so I'm picky about what I spoon and spread. Still, by the time I've searched out the best organic fruit of the season at farmer's market prices, made a huge mess of the kitchen and gone through yet another bag of sugar and box of pectin, I repeatedly remind myself that it's easier, and cheaper, to just buy the stuff.
Inna jam is a Berkeley kitchen that makes seasonally specific jams from organic fruit sourced from its watershed. The freshness of flavor in these jams is awesome. They're an appropriate alternative to home-produced product.
Since Inna jam makes single varietal fruit collections based on what's right and ripe, flavors vary throughout the year. Here are my favorites of the current crop in order of preference:
Seascape Strawberry (From the spring collection and still available in stores)
Rich with the distinct, tart character of the Seascape strawberry variety. This jam is chunky, fresh and vibrant with a pleasant, lingering finish.
From the summer collection just released:
Tayberry
Simply delicious, it's like olallieberry pie filling (tayberries and olallieberries are different crosses of raspberries and blackberries). Chunky with fruit and saturated with seeds, the barely crushed berries remind you you're eating something made from fresh picked fruit and recently stuffed in a jar.
Santa Rosa Plum
This tastes like the plums from my tree at the height of the season, but better; sugar will do that. It's sweeter than tart, but still tart enough to bring the plum character through.
Royal Blenheim Apricot
A bit runny for my taste, but that's often the case with home made stone fruit jams when they're made without pectin, as this one is. Good flavor, though a bit mild.
For a particularly nice treat, assuming you have reasonable kitchen skills and are comfortable with a pot of hot oil, pick up a box of Cafe Du Monde Beignet mix (Cost Plus World Market, Williams-Sonoma). These jams on a hot piece of fried dough are an exquisite breakfast bite.
Inna jam is available at Bi Rite Market, from Inna jam's website, and by annual subscription. $12 a jar, and in certain parts of the city they'll deliver by bicycle for another $10, regardless of quantity. Seasonal, locavore, Berkley, bicycle-delivered jam; works for me.
