This is a phrase that has become my mantra lately. Life hands me lemons, I chant “make lemonade…just…make lemonade” under my breath like a crazy woman. Like during mother’s day brunch service, when I dropped an entire gallon jug of milk into an open bucket of chicken stock and it splashed up all over me. I just took a deep breath (after yelling “fuck me!” a few times) and decided it was time to make myself a nice fancy espresso drink and take a little break. These things happen, after all.
I decided on my new mantra after my first total meltdown at work; I was carrying a tray of mimosas (and no, I’m not a server) to a table that had seemingly disappeared. After running upstairs, downstairs, and outside, I finally managed to find them and set the tray down on a wobbly table. Every single glass slid off the tray and shattered right there, in front of an enormous group of people. I totally lost it, the kind of freakout where you are sobbing in the walk-in and even breathing the strawberry-scented air doesn’t make you feel any better. I can’t even explain why that was my breaking point. I guess everyone has one, and I’ve been working this job for several months without incident. But honestly, sometimes personal life plus work stress just makes something like that so much worse than it really is.
So, on that note, I recently went strawberry picking (nice segue, eh?) and got a whole lot of strawberries for jam-making. I’d already made jam once, a few weeks ago, with strawberries from a different farm, and I figured I’d just do it again and share the fruits (no pun intended) of my labor with some friends. But these strawberries? They were not having it. I didn’t really know what to do with my failed jam-soup, so I stuck it in the freezer for a few days, and thought about what to make with it.
And then, lemonade! Well, not literally.
Homemade pate de fruit out of failed jam is really not a bad thing. Oh, and in case you ever happen to fuck up some jam, here’s how to make delicious french candy out of it:
Take 4 cups of jam-soup, and whiz in the food processor. Pour into a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Sprinkle 4 teaspoons powdered pectin over it, whisk to blend, bring to a boil. Cook till 223 degrees, then pour into a parchment-lined pan and let set. Cut into squares and roll in vanilla sugar. Share with friends!