On the hot Saturday just past, I stayed in, spent 1 hour pitting over 2 pounds of beautiful, firm, delicious Washington dark cherries with a knife because the cherries were too big for the cherry pitter, then letting them macerate for 2 hours in lemon juice and half the sugar most recipes call for, then stirring them for 50 minutes in a deep pot over varying degrees of heat to get almost 2 pints of no-added-pectin, no-corn-syrup cherry jam into just sterilized jars.
Late that night, almost midnight, I posted a messy jam photo on my Instagram, was almost immediately rewarded by a ❤ from an account which follows me, but I didn’t follow because I hadn’t been able to identify the follower. Why? 1) It had been marked as private previously, and 2) the bio indicated a connection with a high school, but not a specific high school. I’m wary of random teenagers, okay? Long story short. The account had been made public, possibly only for a moment, and I recognized a couple events and people in the photos, so I quickly sent a Follow Back and a note, received by a “HaHa” when I related this brief story. It just so happens that one jar of the black cherry jam is for me and the second is for the family connected with the mysterious Instagram follower!
Recipe is in here, although I used more cherries than a quart because I had them and still same 2 cups sugar! https://mschefinseattle.com/2019/06/30/a-jam-of-cherries/
Ms Chef in Seattle 