The Perfect Guest

Toss a stack of decorating (or other) books into you weekend bag. It's always fun to peruse other people's books and weekend guests may enjoy your lovely books

You can add a cookbook, such as the Barefoot Contessa book to your gift....a great read at the cottage and practical too.

Slightly rumpled casual ribbons....in keeping with a casual, slightly rumpled weekend.

Clay tag decorations....the crown for the queen of the house....Fleur de Lys for your French friends

Some of my favorite books....color coordinating with the jam....

The Perfect Guest brings a pot of homemade Blueberry and Vanilla Jam, a loaf of crusty bread, and a stack of decorating books to peruse with her host over the weekend.

Officially Day 1 of summer and the invites to cottages, picnics, BBQ's and weekends in the country  means you need to be ready with small tokens of appreciation to bring your kind hosts. Luckily summer is also a time of abundant and well priced fruit such as blueberries, peaches and strawberries. 4 packets of blueberries made 7 jars of this gorgeous jam, now ready and waiting to be tossed in a basket with a batch of scones and a box of good tea, to make a lovely gift for your host/hostess. Don't fear gifting a man jam. I sent a bag of fresh croissants and a pot of raspberry jam down to my neighbor on the morning of his birthday and he LOVED it.

For this batch, I recycled some pretty bought jam jars. Because I have been jamming for so long, I know how to check the jars are properly sealed, and use very careful canning practices, I will use a jar over again but only once. If you plan to sell jam, you are not allowed to re-use jars. 

I followed the recipe on the Certo package for this blueberry jam, but I cut open a large vanilla bean, scraped the seeds and put them in with the sugar and fruit and tossed the bean in while it was boiling. Remove the bean before you bottle your jam. Add a bow, a tag, flower etc, and you're done. I hope our weekend host enjoys it. Frenchie tested the jam this morning on a stolen piece of toast. 

A weekend post from the Bruce Peninsula to follow........