Most mornings I wake to the smell of something savoury cooking on the stove top. Lew wakes early, around 5:00 am, and he likes to come down to the house, while no one else is up, and have free rein to cook his breakfast. Sometimes it’s bacon and eggs, other times it’s chickpea pasta and veggies, or cheesy bacon and egg wraps cooked in the toasted sandwich maker. But the other, morning it was the night before’s left over curry.
I’ve actually grown to dislike those types of smells first thing in the morning. There was once a time when I enjoyed the smell of bacon frying, but those days have mostly gone, and now I prefer something lighter and less animally so early on in the day. This morning, however, I could smell jam.
To be perfectly honest I’ve not given the smell of jam much thought over my lifetime. When we talk endearing smells I’m much more inclined towards jasmine and daphne and gardenia, and freshly baked bread, and coffee brewing. Those are the ones etched at the forefront of mind - the scents that get all the fame and hoo haa.
But the smell of jam was an utter joy to wake up to, and it put me in the happiest of moods. Anything that causes my mind to wander off into the nooks and crannies of cosy childhood memories, is a welcome thing. This is exactly what happened when I took those first few jammy whiffs.
They took me back to the days when my dad would bring home something sweet, and packaged and bought. This was a treat, for sure. Most of our sweet goodies came from the ones Mum baked on an early weekday, and placed into the old Arnotts assorted creams tin, or the orange and brown tuppaware container.. We always had homemade things. That’s just the way our mum rolled.
But dad was a different kettle of fish. He couldn’t resist the temptations of a shop shelf. Usually it was mint slices or gaieties (a biscuit that I would never choose if left to my own devices) but sometimes, he’d go for something a little more fancy; Iced Vovos.
I know, I know, the more fancy claim is debatable. Many would suggest that a biscuit smothered in chocolate, and filled with a creamy centre, was the more decadent choice. Not me. I believed that Iced Vovos were the treat of fairies and princesses and, quite possibly, even unicorns. I took my Iced Vovo eating very seriously. I had a pattern to my devouring of them, and I tried hard to stick to it. First, I would carefully nibble along one of the pink rows, gnawing as close to the jam, but not touching, as I could. Then the other pink row would be nibbled. The best was left for last, the raspberry red jam line. The jewel of the bickie. Straight down the hatch! Pleased as punch with my efforts, I’d grab for another.
Another jammy treat that my Dad would buy for us were hot jam donuts from the little caravan on the side of the road at Berry, on our way to see Grandma. We’d often stop there, and Dad would bring back enough piping hot jam donuts to satiate our drooling demure.
The first goal in eating the donut was to avoid tongue burn. I would slowly bite into the soft, sweet dough, always on tenterhooks for fear of accidentally heading on into the jammy centre whilst it was still too hot to handle. Honestly, it was a Russian Roulette scenario because no one could wait patiently enough for the jam to cool and there was always someone who ended up losing their taste buds for the next few days.
My absolute favourite part of jam donuts in Berry was running my finger around the inside of the now-greasy paper bag, searching for remnants of cinnamony sugar.
Another memory around the smell of jam was, of course, in my Nan’s kitchen. Every year she would make a big batch of blackberry jam in her largest saucepan. Watching her stir that bubbling ruby sweetness, and then pour it into clean glass jars ready for spreading on my toast, ahhh, it was a glorious experience.
Oh, and the blobs of jam she’d dollop into buttery shortbread rounds for the jam drops. The rest would be poured into pastry cases, and baked into delicious blackberry tarts. Cream would be whipped; tea brewed; afternoon sorted!
Those memories are scented. How precious. The association I have with the smell and those moments is cosy, and lovely, and it’s because of jam and the sweet sugary berry flavours that waft out of it, that I have infused the smell into my memory.
What a lovely realisation I’ve had, and an equally wonderful smell to wake up to.
The thought I’m now left with though is: how did last night’s left overs end up smelling like jam?
I shall ponder this for the next few weeks, and I’m sure I will not find an answer to it, but at least I have given jam a little bit of glory. I think it deserves it, don’t you?
Now, all this talk of jam smells and childhood seriously does have a point, I promise:
What smell takes you back to childhood?
See, now you’ve got something to write about in your letters this week. How handy is that? ;)
Oh, and I’m so looking forward to hearing all about your scented childhood memories! Please share them with me here.
Goings on at home …
We’ve had a bit of a cold snap. The warm spring weather tricked us into thinking the frosts were a thing of the wintery past. Alas, they were not, and so our punnets of basil, capsicums, cucumbers and zuchinis have all taken a beating. A beating that most of them won’t recover from. Thems the breaks when you live in the southern regions of NSW. Frosts can appear as late as November, though usually by September we are all starting to feel rather cocky. It usually always ends in tears because, hello, lacking in patience is our middle name!
Thankfully we didn’t plant out all of the tomatoes, cueys and cappos so the little glass potting shed is holding the rest of the gang in a warm embrace. They’ll be staying put for a good couple of weeks, just in case.
Nimmitabel, which is about an hours drive north west of us, had snowfall over the weekend. So, I don’t feel l have too much to complain about.
Everything else is coming into bloom. The flowering cherries and peaches are glowing, and the crab apples and white prunus are looking gorgeous too. I keep having little breaks from my computer to race outside and take yet another photo of them all. This angle. That angle. Close up. From a distance. Agh, I’m becoming rather sick of my own antics.
The roses are next and I am sensing they are in for a glorious season this year. Fingers, toes, everything crossed that’s the case.
Oh, and speaking of favourite childhood smells, one of mine has always been jasmine.
Growing up we had a huge jasmine vine smothering our front porch. To get into the house, via our tiny kitchen, we had to duck under the jasmine. I would linger as the sweet scent filled my nostrils. It would last all the way through the kitchen and into the house.
We now have a substantial jasmine vine along the chook pen fence. It’s taken a while to get going but now it is thick and rambling and the tendrils covered in white flowers drip with that heady scent of spring. It’s quite close to the house so there isn’t a spot, in our garden, where we can’t smell jasmine right now. I feel spoilt by it all and every day my heart feels connected to the home I was most fond of as a child.
Last week I did a Live over on Instagram to give everyone a sticky beak at the contents of The Tea + Toast Club stationery subscription box for August. It was fun to share little snippets of the story behind the Wild Wood box, and to talk about the process all the behind the scenes things that go on when I put these boxes together. If you’d like to have a watch, you can do that here:
The next box is underway, and like I mentioned in last week’s newsletter, the name of it is:
Here’s a teeny, tiny sneak peek of one of Lew’s illustrations for the October box.
The colour palette for these is so pretty - pinks, mauves, blues and greens. Could you get more springy than that?
There are 8 spaces left for this one, so if you’d like to subscribe, and receive your box of letter writing goodies in October, you can do that here:
Dear Nan …
Dear Nan has begun over in the paid membership. So far there are three letters to read, and some photos to peruse. I’ve also got some other goodies to add before the month is out. This week I’m going to be sharing a letter about this old pale green soap box and the precious letters I found inside.
I can’t wait to share more as the weeks roll on. It’s been a wonderful trip back to the 30s and 40s. Ahhh what an era that must of been. There’ll be a recipe too:)
If you’d like to become a member of Dear Nan, you can do that here:
Okey doke, well off I best trot there’s lots to do today.
I hope you have a lovely week ahead. Oh, and please let me know if you happen to write about the smells that remind you of childhood. Eek, I just had a memory of the pit toilet we had. Mmmmm. I hope your smell memories are more of the jam and jasmine variety;)
Love
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The smell of mangoes 🥭 brings memories of sitting under the Mango tree at Nanna’s house in Mackay, North Queensland. That sticky sweet goodness all over our faces and arms, hands and tummy. We ate them in our swimmers and then got hosed down giggles 🤭 galore as we dried off in the sun ☀️ helping to pick more mangoes for Nan to make Mango Chutney. I have heard one of the cousins have the original recipe - might just need to track that down.