Pump up the jam...

Let me tell you how much I love this time of year... I LOVE IT! I love love love those juicy, fragrant little specimens we've come to know as strawberries. MMmmmmm strawberries - fragole - fresas - erdbeeren - morangos - Doesn't matter how you say it, they're sooooo yummy.

I've always made it a point to go strawberry picking toward the last week of June. Even as a teen, when most were way too cool to pick fruit out in the country, I'd put together a yearly excursion. More often than not, I'd only get one or two true-blue friends who only came along because they didn't want me to feel like a lonely berry-picking loser. I admit it, though - picking berries at 17 is kind of geeky.

Geeky or not, I still maintain the tradition. Now, however, my children outdo my level of excitement. "We're going berry picking" is met with whoops & clapping & jumping. Love it! I asked my parents to join my family this year at Applewood Farms in Stouffville & I can honestly say I felt truly happy. There's nothing like sitting in a strawberry field, surrounded by your family, with your mouth full of those sweet, luscious berries.

With our baskets & bellies full, we made our way home. While everyone snoozed around me, I went on to make jam. Am I nuts? No. I find it so rewarding & relaxing. Plus, there's nothing that comes even close to the quality of my jam on any grocery shelf. I hope I don't sound like a jam & jelly snob, but my preserves rock! Can't wait till peach season. Winona peach fest, here I come!!!

Italian Rum Cake...old skool style!

How proud am I of my rum cake? From the top of my head to the tips of my toes, I still tingle when I think of my rum cake.

When I get an idea stuck in my head, there's no shaking it. My idea was to make an old-school Italian cake. Chalk it up to a nostalgic feeling anytime a celebration rolls around. We had some rum cake at my brother-in-law's graduation. It was okay. So-so. It wasn't mind-blowing. Just "meh". Somehow, rum cake in the 70's & 80's always tasted divine and I decided to make it my mission to recreate the perfect cake.

I didn't appreciate it when I was a 7 yr-old & all the other kids had their cherry Duncan Hines cakes topped with fluffy vanilla frosting & multicoloured sprinkles. It embarrassed me to have agigantic, ethnic delicacy... sprinkled with slivered nuts & spun sugar from Uniti Bakery in Etobicoke (needless to say, Uniti is long gone...so sad). Let's face it, anyone under 15 will not appreciate a cake loaded with rum. But that's the way it was back then for a young Italian kid. Rum cake. Take it or leave it.

How I miss Uniti Bakery rum cake.

So I took bits and pieces of recipes I found on the internet & in my mom's recipe box. See, a rum cake can't be divine unless it is made with the perfect "pan di spagna" (that's a sponge cake) and my mom's pan di spagna is out of this world! There's a story behind it as well...but I'll save that for another time. End result, the cake was delish! Oh so so so good! I had it for breakfast, lunch, dinner & dessert. I'm going to have to refrain from posting the recipe, however. Nope, it's not quite ready yet. I still have to work out a slight kink in the chocolate custard portion of the recipe. I promise to post it later. Cross my heart.