In this installment
American Spoon Early Glow Strawberry Preserves
Koeze Cream-Nut Peanut Butter
American Spoon Early Glow Strawberry Preserves from Petoskey
What makes this particular strawberry preserve so special? For starters the variety of berries. While only a few strawberry obsessed gardeners will recognize Early Glow by name, they’re special. Much smaller than your typical strawberry and apparently a bit fickle about ripening, their yields are quite low. Strawberry season in Michigan is shamefully short, even more so for these. Not surprisingly, few farmers choose to grow them. The aroma is amazing. The flavor lingers long. This is as good a strawberry jam as I’ve ever had.
Koeze Cream-Nut Peanut Butter from Grand Rapids
Jeff Koeze sources great Virginia peanuts, brings them north to Michigan in one-ton sacks and then blanches them to remove the skins and keep them from going rancid. He toasts the peanuts in vintage coffee roasters, adds sea salt, then grinds the mixture to the texture of spun silk. As I heard when I visited, “We’re not new. We’re not improved. We’re making the same traditional product that we’ve made all along.” And that’s a good thing.