THE NEW JAMS FOR THE NEW MONTH

If you believe jams are only for breakfast and the kid merienda after school, you will really discover something new.
Some kinds of jams are accompaniment for various meals, from meat to fish, rice, pasta, vegetables or salad. In fact it is since some years a common accompaniment in many (good) restaurants.

Seen on Internet: French fries, meat ball and red fruit jam

These jams can be sweet and sour, jams with a strong character or spicy jams.


We have already the KALUMPIT (Sarali) JAM whose the red wine taste of tannins and raspberry marry with meat. It is the mixing of two opposite tastes which creates a new culinary sensation which surprises first and then enjoy the taste buds.


Today we add a new jam of this type: the BATWAN JAM. My dear friends, this one is born to marry with fishes! But batwan is also used in some recipes of chicken inasal so why not also with your chicken barbecue? By the way, the batwan or batuan (Illongo) or binukaw or binucau (Tagalog) is a brother of the mangosteen as shows its scientific name (and the picture): Garcinia binucao.
It is a rare and original jam you have to discover.

But with December arrives Xmas and we decided to offer you a new collection:

 the SPICY JAMS

Each jam of this collection has been tested and tasted by Chefs of great restaurants in Bacolod and a selection of friends who share with us the pleasure of the gastronomy. The improvements we did are the result of their remarks and we thank them for their judicious advices.
Every week of December, you will discover a new spicy jam of this very limited production. To not mistake with the sweet jams, the label is different:

With this sterilized SPICY JAM collection, LOLA’S GARDEN JAM has explored for you the world of spices. This collection offers you a gradation: slightly spicy, spicy, and very spicy. You can choose what will be the best accompaniment for your meat, fish, rice, vegetables, salads or pastas, at Filipino breakfast, lunch or dinner. SPICY JAMS are not simple hot sauces. The sugar and, generally the vinegar, give a special savor sweet and sour. The flavors of the spices are progressively liberated like the perfumes of a bunch of flowers.

This week, I present you: the SWEET PEPPER JAM is a little spicy with a touch of red hot pepper and is closed to the taste of some Thai dishes.

Coming soon on your table:

- the GREEN MANGO JAM,

- the RED CHILI JAM,

- the GINGER JAM

Enjoy MORE your meal with the SPICY JAM collection of LOLA’S GARDEN JAM!

The question of the week:

Why a slice of bread with jam falls down always the side of jam on the floor?

This great and fundamental question should be related with the laws of Murphy which say something like: if something wrong can happen, it will infallibly happen.
But some scientist having probably nothing more important to do demonstrated that it is more or less impossible the slice of bread falling from a table reaches the floor on the good side (without jam) because of the height of the table and the gravitational force: the slice of bread cannot turn more than 3/4 of turn. So  the face with jam touch the soil first.
Note: if we push farer the computation, to fall on the good side, the table should have a size of 3 meters, and this type of table, you will agree, is relatively rare. 

 Available this week (bottles 300g, 8oz):

CLASSICAL JAMS
Guyabano-calamansi              130P

Jackfruit-calamansi                in some stores

Pomelo-orange                        130P

Papaya-Buko                           130P
Breadfruit                                in some stores

Tomato-apple                          150P

Watermelon                             140P

ACCOMPANIMENT NOT SPICY
Batwan                                     140P
Kalumpit, (Sarali)                   150P

SPICY JAMS

Sweet pepper                          180P

     Minimum order for home delivery: 6 bottles mixed,

     Free delivery in Bacolod (payment at the delivery)

NOTE: this prices are not applied in local selling places


Send your remarks and orders to:

lolasgardenjam@gmail.com
or Text: 0919 3555 424

THE JAM, THE SUGAR AND THE DIABETIS

This title sounds like an old western movie of Sergio Leone (1966): "The good, the bad and the ugly", doesn't it?
During the free tasting session we regularly organize in the different outlets, some customers hesitate to buy jam because suffering of diabetes. Last day, I saw an impressive woman explaining me she will not buy jam because she was taking care of her hyperglycemia, but in one of her hand there was an ice-cream and a can of soft drink in the other... It seems there is a lack of knowledge about the sources of sugar, their relative quantity and their reasonable use in the diet. 

For example, this woman didn't realize that, in a can of coke of 355 ml, theres is 40.5 g of sugar. In a jar of 300g jam there is 195 g of sugar. But the big difference is you can drink your can of Coke in one minute and the jar of jam in many days. In the spoon of jam you spread on a slice of bread at breakfast one time a day, you will have something like 3g of sugar.

If you drink one can of coke with one slice of bread with one spoon of jam, you will eat 43.5 g of sugar but 93% of this sugar is coming from the coke.

 According to 

http://www.clivir.com,

"A diabetes diet is one that advocates a proportional grouping of foods, that together help to control blood glucose levels. Your glucose level will be higher after you eat a meal, and lower in between."

Of course I will never tell people with diabetes to eat one jar of jam every day.

I can only advice people to have a good life hygiene to benefit of a normal life. No smoking, no alcohol and practice of sport is certainly more efficient than no jam in reasonable quantity.

Other news of the stores:

Two other Cafe Bob's Pastries stores will present and sale our jams this coming week: the outlet in Bob's Gaisano mall and the outlet in Bob's Lopue's East. We frankly thanks the management of Bob's who likes our jams and offers us a great opportunity. The only problem is: it will multiply for us the terrible temptation during the free tasting session. Do you really think it is easy to resist during two or three hours smelting of the croissant, seeing of the wonderful and artistic cakes and hearing the customers enjoying their merienda?

The question of the week:

Where is the Lola's garden and are you growing organically your fruit and vegetables?

Lola has no land, sorry! The only way to have a large choice of fruit and vegetable in sufficient quantity and at any time is to work with farmers. Our activities in Natural farming helped us to have relations with, when it is possible, organic farmers. Most of the fruits we use are growing naturally in mountains. For example the Kalumpit (Sarali) or Jackfruit are not chemically treated. Of course we cannot control imported fruits like apples or oranges used in small quantities. Hopefully, Negros island offers a large choice of fruits and vegetable and there is a real will to become organic. We hope in the coming years, the organic practices will be the common way for farming.

 Available this week:

           Guyabano-calamansi, 

            Jackfruit-calamansi, stock in the stores only, 

            Kalumpit, here called Sarali, the fruit you turn in your hand to make it softer, stock reduced 

            Pomelo-orange, 

            Papaya-Buko,
            Breadfruit, stock in few stores only

            Tomato-apple jam

            Watermelon

     The price is 130 P*/bottle 300g (8oz) except the Kalumpit  and tomato-apple jam at 150 P/bottle, and watermelon at 140 P/bottle.

     Minimum order for home delivery: 6 bottles mixed,

     Free delivery in Bacolod (payment at the delivery)

*not applied in local selling places


Send your remarks and orders to:

lolasgardenjam@gmail.com
or Text: 0919 3555 424

THE SMALL STORY OF JAM (2)

Another great name about jam is the french Olivier de Serres (1539-1619) who invented agronomy. He is the one who developed the production of silk with worms, introduced corn and extracted sugar from beet in France. A genius! In his book "Théâtre de l’agriculture et mesnage des champs"(more or less: Theater of agriculture and management of field) edited in 1600,  he writes about jam (translation of old french is not easy!): "With sugar, many and various fruits from trees and in the garden can easily preserve and can be conserved a very long time and keep beauty and goodness". He considers "brown sugar is better than white sugar and less expensive". He advices: "Do not hurry to make good jam" and explains how to "recycle jam which failed and withdraw sugar of old jams". This gifted man was a real master "confiturier".

The question of the week:

Is it possible to use other type of containers than glass for jam like plastic bottles?

Glass containers resists to the heat and jam is poured in the containers at very high temperature (over 100°C). Most of common plastic containers will melt with hot jam. I tried many years ago to use special plastic pouch but the sealing was not easy and there was great risk of contamination. For me, glass remains the best and safe solution.

By the way, we would like to reuse the containers and we have to discuss with our store partners how to manage that.

 Available this week:

           Guyabano-calamansi, 

            Jackfruit-calamansi, stock in the stores only, 

            Kalumpit, here called Sarali, the fruit you turn in your hand to make it softer, stock reduced 

            Pomelo-orange, 

            Papaya-Buko,
            Breadfruit, stock in few stores only

            Tomato-apple jam

            Watermelon

     The price is 130 P*/bottle 300g (8oz) except the Kalumpit  and tomato-apple jam at 150 P/bottle, and watermelon at 140 P/bottle.

     Minimum order for home delivery: 6 bottles mixed,

     Free delivery in Bacolod (payment at the delivery)

*not applied in local selling places


Send your remarks and orders to:

lolasgardenjam@gmail.com
or Text: 0919 3555 424

THE WATERMELON BREAKFAST

Yes, this is possible with the new flavor of the month: Watermelon or how to make jam with water (watermelon contains 95% of water)! Hopefully, it is possible and it gives a fresh and tasty red jam excellent for breakfast. This new jam is available in every stores this Friday.


Did you know the lycopene responsible of the red color is an anti-oxidant? Watermelon is also rich in vitamins, potassium, thiamin and magnesium. One more time, medicine and jam are friends.

BREAKING NEWS 

Since Friday 5th of November, THE PASTRY SHOP AT BOB'S hosts our jams. No need to present BOB'S to the Bacolodenos. It is part of the life of Bacolod since so many years! I suggest you to try this: At breakfast time, sit down at a table of the Pastry. Order a coffee and a croissant. Spread one of our jam on the flat side of the croissant (to open the croissant with a knife and spread the jam inside is tolerated but it is an useless act of cruelty). Eat quietly. You will experience one of these rare moments of the existence, you feel so fine, so happy to be here on this Earth, which is, sometimes, so beautiful, yes, blissfully happy... I swear the croissants of Bob's are the best I never ate in the Philippines, and believe me, after the "baguette", the croissant is the second sin of my French compatriots. For this occasion, we organize Monday morning (8th of November) a free tasting session and we will be happy to meet you at the Pastry shop at Bob's.

The question of the week:

I read it is better to prepare jams in a copper pot. Is it true?


We have to refer to chemistry to answer this question. In traditional preparation of jam, the craftsman often refers to the use of copper pot. It is also said that, especially for red fruits, the copper must not be tinned (covered with tin). Tin salts which appear if there is oxidation of the tin can colored the red fruit in purple. If the tinned pot is very clean there is no risk. But why copper would be better? If you put red fruits on copper one or two hours, you will see the copper very clean: the juice of the fruit "clean" the copper oxides. Do you remember the pectin? During the cooking, the pectin of the fruits is liberated and is responsible of the gellification of the jam. The copper helps to "stick" together the pectin molecules and that is why copper pots helps the increase gellification of the jams. Jams made with copper pot are harder.

Hopefully stainless pot can also be used with success to prepare jam. Addition of natural lemon pectin can helps to the gellification. Anyway, it is now very difficult to find copper pot and if you find it, be ready to pay a very high price.
Personally, I prefer to use stainless supposed to be totally neutral. The release of copper oxide in copper pot tin oxide in tinned pot or aluminium oxide in aluminium pot is not compatible with our concept of chemical free jams. And for the gellification, natural lemon pectin is totally acceptable.

 Available this week:

           Guyabano-calamansi, 

            Jackfruit-calamansi, stock in the stores only, the season    seems finished,

            Kalumpit, here called Sarali, the fruit you turn in your hand to make it softer, stock reduced as we are at the end of the season

            Pomelo-orange, 

            Papaya-Buko,
            Breadfruit, stock in few stores only; season is finished,

            Tomato-apple jam

            Watermelon

     The price is 130 P*/bottle 300g (8oz) except the Kalumpit  and tomato-apple jam at 150 P/bottle, and watermelon at 140 P/bottle.

     Minimum order for home delivery: 6 bottles mixed,

     Free delivery in Bacolod (payment at the delivery)

*not applied in local selling places


Send your remarks and orders to:

lolasgardenjam@gmail.com
or Text: 0919 3555 424