Today's Jam.

I have carried through my life many childhood memories of bliss. One of them is sitting at my grandmother's table eating a bowl of vanilla ice-cream topped with peaches and raspberries. Not only was it a sight my five year old eyes had never seen before, it tasted like magic. What is this Grammie? Peach Melba. I seemed to live the don't ask, don't tell life. I just stored the name away in my mind, smugly knowing Peach Melba was the most delicious concoction on Earth.

My grandmother kept her freezer full of ice-cream at all times. Ice-cream at home was a very special treat. We would pile in the car on Sunday nights and drive to Broad River and get a quart of hand packed ice-cream. Always the same, the bottom half was filled with chocolate and the rest with creamy vanilla. By the time we got home with the waxed cardboard cylinder the ice-cream was soupy. Everyone got some of each flavor, and like my father, I sat and stirred my bowl until the entire dish was filled with a creamy pale chocolate custard.
Once gone, we began to look forward to the next Sunday night when we would do it all over again.

Unless, you were fortunate enough to be at Grammies when ice-cream was on the menu. If you were brave enough you could go down into her basement with it's rough plaster walls, uneven floor and creepy nooks and crannies and pick the flavors. My grandmother bought Schraft's ice-cream and kept it in a long low freezer with three separate doors that opened like lids. The doors were heavy and I would have to lean over the freezing cavern balancing my belly on the edge of the top to reach in for the ice-cream. It seemed entirely possible I could tumble in, the lid could slam shut and there I would remain until I was missed, by which time I would have become ice-cream myself.

It was worth the risk, the choices were many. In the summer The Good Humor Man regularly pulled into my grandmother's long stone driveway to stock her freezer with all flavors of icy goodness. However, given the choice, a bowl of creamy ice-cream won me over the frozen pops every time.

Still entranced by anything remotely magical I set my heart (this week) on creating a jam that brought back memories of a very special childhood and love. It worked. I must write more about the magic, the childhood fantasy that was reality.

I have truly bottled up a memory. A layer of tart raspberry jelly in the bottom of the jar with saucy sweet peaches poured over. Because it was breakfast and I am no longer five, I savored this Peach Melba on a whole wheat muffin. The memories add the sweetness.