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I am glad to report that I did not drown myself in the froth, nor did I start any large kitchen fires.  I did, however, manage to get sugar syrup in eccentric locations all over the kitchen, as well as my own elbows.  I also managed to learn some valuable lessons, the most valuable being this:  Just because you have a 15-quart kettle does not mean that you can fit an infinite quantity of fruit and sugar into it.

It's a picture, isn't it?  (Well, yes, it is a picture, but you know what I mean when I say it's a picture.) Specifically, it's a picture of the moment immediately after I strained off the syrup, brought it to a boil, skimmed the foam off the top, brought the syrup to 221F and then added the fruit back to the pot.  It's a technique I learned from Christine Ferber's inspiring and illuminating Mes Confitures, one that is a departure from the method I usually use, and which results in a brighter, cleaner fruit taste, and a texture that retains the memory of the fresh fruit.  It does beautiful things to both rhubarb and strawberries, giving them the appearance of stained glass and the taste of summer.  It makes a jam that doesn't look particularly spreadable; then you realize that you can squash those berries flat against your toast with a knife.  It makes your kitchen smell like pure red fruit.  It would have made for a perfect Sunday, if only I hadn't had the bright idea to cook the whole thing at once. 

Chef Ferber directs us to bring the fruit and syrup to a boil together, skim the surface, simmer for at least five minutes, and then test for a set.  I can now attest that it is impossible to bring the fruit to a good rollicking boil when you are devoting all your energy to nudging the fruit threatening to boil onto the stovetop toward the center of the pot.  I couldn't even do a sheeting test for fear of the whole surface displacing and zizzing onto the stove.  Ah, well, I thought,  Might as well put the canner water on to boil, and set to work lifting the kettle off the stove.

It is an odd thing to realize that even though you can bench-press 75 pounds, and though your balance and alignment has become better with stretching exercises, you still can't lift a pot of jam off the stove.

Fortunately, a solution was at hand:  Find a place to put the stuff, bang it in the fridge, and forget about canning it until such time as I was not suffering a complete nervous collapse.  I don't know what it says about me that I have 12-quart heavy plastic food storage containers around the house, mostly for storing flour or cookies, but at that moment, I was very, very glad that I had them.  The jam had a safe, cold place to stay; I did not have a complete nervous collapse, and I was able to wash all the pots, get a shower to remove the sugar from my elbows, and go out to play with an exaltation of food bloggers, all of whom were invited to eat chocolate and tell stories at the Hudson Hotel with the lovely Sam, who is visiting New York this week, and who is a crackerjack hostess even when she is thousands of miles away from home.

You might be thinking that the jam in this picture looks a bit thin, more like a sauce than a preserve.  You would be right.  Fortunately, this can be corrected by cooking it off in batches, adding the juice of an additional lemon for every four quarts of jam, and bringing it back up to 220F before putting it up in jars.

I should have 39 other beauties just like this one by Friday night.  Right now I have 13.  Every time I go into the kitchen, I find myself staring at them, enchanted by the color, wondering whether it's too late to make a batch of buttermilk biscuits, or whether I should just wait for breakfast.

Edit:  The link, she is up!