I've been (not-so-patiently) waiting two years to make strawberry jam. The year I learned how to can I didn't start until June or July, well after the last luscious red berries had been plucked. And last year, well, I've already lamented about missing strawberry season last year. This year, we were lucky enough to catch the tail end of the Sweet Charlies and the beginnings of the Chandler strawberry crop; the Charlies are a super sweet, early berry, while the Chandlers are large, gorgeous, flavorful berries, each delicious in their own right. We picked a bucket of each, and didn't waste any time turning them in to two batches of beautiful ruby red jam. The strawberry vanilla jam might be my favorite. It is a traditional pectin-free jam, and so it's cooked longer to bring out the natural pectin in the berries. The resulting flavor is sweet and sultry, and almost tastes like strawberry ice cream on it's own, but when drizzled over ice cream becomes otherworldly. The strawberry balsamic

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