About me!
Well, hey there! Welcome to Notes from The Marmalade House. Come on in, let me introduce myself - my name is Heidi (she/her/hers). I have a jam company in Minnesota called Serious Jam where the focus is on gathering as much local fruit as I can get my hands on for my jam making. I like to say that I make old-fashioned jams with new-fashioned flavors. Some crowd favorites are Salted Strawberry, Chai Spiced Pear Butter, Crabapple Thai Chili Jelly, and Rhubarb Lavender Jam - there are about 30 flavors all in. I sell at local markets, a few stores around the Twin Cities area, and several times a year I open up my online jam shop for orders.
And let me say straight away that I LOVE all things food preservation. ALL. THINGS. How to make pickles and preserves, ferments and beverages, cheeses and cultures and sourdough. I love cookbooks and cooking shows, movies about food, podcasts about food, magazines … you get it.
But also, I have a deep and abiding passion for beautiful design, color, art, textiles, antiques, flowers, ceramics, foraging, gathering, and books. And I wanted to start a newsletter as a creative playground to share all things I’m currently enthusiastic about that don’t fit neatly into my Serious Jam life. I mean, not everyone who buys my jam cares to hear about my plans and schemes for befriending the ravens (or are they crows?) that live around here. I. Have. Goals!
So here we go! Notes from the Marmalade House! Let’s see what trouble we can get into, yeah? I’ll have recipes and links for you, fave cookbooks, fave paint colors, tips and tricks for your flower arrangement endeavors. (Did I mention that I was a florist for about 19 years?) And, please know that I swear. I’ll try to edit, but sometimes the fingers just type the swears. Sorry. And also, I have many opinions, but great taste, so you’ll be fine.
What else … my humor is d r y, but you’ll catch on. I love a good play on words, I love a whiskey now and again, I LOVE music and could happily put together playlists for days on end. I have a gorgeous husband, 3 cats (2 inside, 1 barn style), 7 chickens (6 hens, 1 rooster) and one SWEET Golden Retriever boy named Rhubarb. We’re so fond of our little menagerie.
Oh, and you should know that I’m very much on the side of freedom and equality, kindness, goodness, community, inclusion, and love. I’m very much NOT on the side of division, hate, fear and small-minded thinking. The world is much too beautiful of a place to ever sink to that level.
Why subscribe?
It’ll be fun - go on! You can watch me be really bad at ceramics one week and we can have a giggle about it, and the next week you could get a no-fail, perfect recipe for raspberry jam to gloat about impress your friends and family with. Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and publication archives.
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Join the crew
Be part of a community of people who share your interests. Participate in the comments section, or support this work with a subscription. I’ll be hosting live jam sessions (ha! get it?), where I’ll answer your burning jam making questions. I want you to succeed in your preservation efforts and will give you all the help I can.
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