Swedish Jams

Living in Door county I feel fortunate.  The beauty of the nature around me amazes me.  The kind, caring, and giving community that I live in inspires me.  The serene calm and quiet centers me.  I can go out to my backyard and forage for morel mushrooms, ramps, asparagus, and pick spruce tips for syrup in May.  Tap my sugar Maple trees for Maple syrup in late winter, early spring.  Go to a friends house and pick our beloved Door County cherries for pies and cherry bounce.  Pull apples off our trees for a snack while splitting wood for future Winter fires.          One of my favorite times of year is when raspberries and strawberries arrive at farmers markets.  Bright red berries warm from the summer sun full of sweet fruit flavor.  This is the time we make freezer jam.  It's the non cooked cousin to the traditional canning method and it's the perfect way to preserve the excellent fruit flavor in berries.  Our head chef Freddie has a wonderful childhood memory of running into his Mormor's (grandmothers) house in late summer in Sweden and grabbing a piece of bread and a jar of raspberry jam from her freezer and scraping out the frozen jam with the bread to cool off, and that memory provides the inspiration to Al Johnson's Swedish jams.   Both Strawberry and Raspberry jam are imported from Sweden where they are made and give us a great addition to our breakfast line up for the restaurant.  We still enjoy making our own freezer jam but when we run out in February we grab a jar of Al Johnson's Swedish Jam for a solid replacem.