Rhubarb + Vanilla Jam

In late 2021, I was gifted a rather large bunch of rhubarb by a family member. Although I’m a big fan of rhubarb, I wasn’t sure what to do with so much of it. I’d been getting into making jam and had recently and made some pretty good batches of apricot and peach jam from the backyard bounty of other family members. In a strange co-incidence, my workplace at the time had an annual competition going called ‘Disaster Chef’, where each week using a randomly selected ‘feature ingredient’, one of us would cook for our colleagues. They would then rate us on our effort, use of special ingredient, presentation and taste. I had drawn ‘whisky’ as my feature ingredient, which I wasn’t too pleased about. (Whisky is great and all, but doesn’t need to live in my food.) My colleague, Mat, had drawn ‘rhubarb’, much to his expletive-laden chagrin. Mat and I wasted no time and swapped ingredients. Mat stopped swearing and I immediately had a solution to my rhubarb excess – making rhubarb and vanilla jam, served with fresh, warm scones and cream. I also gave everyone a little ‘traveller’ jar to take home afterwards.

But being a designer, its simply not enough to hand over a ‘naked’ jar. With some magenta gouache and bits of strawboard ripped from the backs of old note books, a fun little illustration was made that became the labels for the jam. Not a big project, not an important project, nor did I win Disaster Chef, so why does this it make it into my folio? Because sometimes the most satisfaction comes from giving, and from the small and slightly pointless things that spark a bit of joy. The jam was pretty good too.

Thanks for Cook Republic for the recipe.