Inside my wonky childhood memory, we had twenty seven fruit trees in our back yard. I’m sure it wasn’t that precise number – likely more, but still there was an incredibly splendid feeling of towering trees and surging vines.

A dog of indeterminate breeding, multiple cats and a playhouse to decorate on whim made a quarter of an acre of fruit and foliage feel like paradise. Growing up in New Zealand, this orchard of sorts meant grapefruit and nectarines as much as apples, pears and my beloved plums.

The magic materialised once my mother set to work in our kitchen. The clunky oven sterilising  jars saved and collected through the year, and a huge pot perpetually simmering fruit and sugar. The delight of lids snapping down to seal the sticky glory in. I choose to forget the wet heat and enormous fruit flies.  And from early Autumn our pantry started to fill. Preserved peaches, pickles, blackberry conserve (foraging unclaimed land gave us much) and then plums – beautiful plums. 

Jam on toast on a sulky March Sunday points us toward the dog-days of summer, and for me - five years old, plum in hand, a dog called Michelle and a very fertile imagination - brings back my happiest childhood years. 

Our Jam I hope harnesses all of this and more. Delicious, simple and deeply, deeply pleasing.

Cassandra x

Photography by Ellen Christina Hancock & Kalina Krawczwyk