June 19, 2015--Best of Behind: The Jam Garage

A companion piece to "The Dump," this was first posted June 14, 2010--

After establishing a relationship with the town dump, next on our list of settling-in priorities was a visit to the Jam Garage.

This probably requires some explanation.

Wherever we are we are addicted to finding an indigenous place to go for breakfast. Half the reason we bought this cottage on the Midcoast of Maine was because of the Bristol Diner. A tiny hole-in-the-wall kind of establishment right across the road from the town hall, which, even before we entered it for the first time, had the look which conveyed the promise that we would encounter a diverse, very local clientele. And that, with a little luck, the people we would meet would be friendly and welcoming. So that we could have some instant social life and learn about the area in addition to finding good coffee and whatever the chef might throw together.

Well the chef-co-owner, Doug, does a lot more than throw things together. What he prepares for breakfast and lunch is blue-plate exceptional. Saturday morning, for example, I had one of his legendary egg dishes. This one scrambled eggs saturated with chopped sautéed asparagus (still crunchy), browned onions, sprigs of fresh thyme, and melted-in layers of Parmigiana cheese. All accompanied by a side of perfect hash-brown potatoes and a homemade biscuit. Um, um.

And the people—the wait staff and the regulars, which we quickly became—are as fine as the eats. There is Doug himself. Of west coast origin he is in Bristol now fresh from a stint of living in Alaska, and is not only a gifted chef but an accomplished artist and wit. Both are in evidence on the walls and diner’s chalkboard. “We Don’t Serve Fast Food” one sign proclaims, “We Serve Good Food As Fast As We Can.” And in case one day you are looking for soup at lunch, Doug, on another sign, tells you that the Soup of the Day is “No Soup.” But he will also let you know that they do have soupspoons for the daily chili.

His art is also on display. Currently, intricate ink line drawings that appear to have been influenced by what he must have seen and experienced among the native people in Alaska and the northwest. Mysterious and haunting stuff.

Crystal McLain, the other co-owner, is the place’s guiding spirit. And I mean both “guiding” and “spirit” literally. When in attendance, she is the diner’s impresario. When not there, she is pursuing her rapidly budding career with an ever-growing clientele as a licensed massage therapist. But to just encounter her at the diner is like receiving a massage of good cheer, ever-resilient optimism, and doses of wisdom that belie her years. And she makes sure, in her impresario way, that everyone feels paid attention to and gets to know each other. Shyness is not acceptable behavior when Crystal is in attendance and gliding between and among the three booths, two tables, and the six or seven stools at the counter.

It is not an uncommon occurrence that the10 to 12 of us who might be there at any time are all together engaged in a conversation that might be about the state of lobstering, the local primary elections, the latest show at the Farnsworth Museum, the Celtic-Lakers series, or the affects of social networking on American culture. All conversations from last Saturday morning.

And engaged in that conversation might be, as it was then, a former successful New York City accountant, John, who now with his son runs an international manufacturing company that produces world-class manways (look it up) and seems to have read pretty much everything important; Rod, a retired school superintendent from Ohio, who the other day had a lot of insight to share about the plague of bullying; a former contractor, Al, who specialized in the design and construction of huge spaces who now does lots of things, very much including producing books of his photos that do a remarkable job of capturing the beauty of this place and the lives of the people who work the waters (his latest, just published, is about Muscongus Bay); a former employee of a locally-owned telephone company, Ken, who has the driest wit around (and there is a hot contest here for that coveted title); a South Bristol women with roots that go back more than 300 years who, though she does not have the most worldly goods, doesn’t pursue them or keep score that way, but has devoted her life to the care of others and does so with so much generosity of spirit that if the encyclopedia needs an illustration for the Golden Rule a picture of Lynn would do very nicely; and then of course Rona and me, hanging out, sharing the conviviality. Fully welcomed by these wonderful people and the many others who make their way to the Bristol a few mornings a week. They make us feel part of their community, as if we have lived here all our lives.

We by now are fully ensconced and settled in there every day at the counter or in one of the cozy booths. So if you are in the neighborhood (and I recommend it) be sure to stop by. Doug has lots of good coffee waiting and the best hash ever, which I could go on about at some length but will restrain myself.

But what does any of this have to do with the Jam Garage?

Though all the food at the Bristol, as you’ve seen, is to write about, the jam, in little plastic punnets, though Smuckers, is, well, still Smuckers.

I don’t blame Doug. He keeps his prices affordable and those little things are cost-effective, control portions, and are easy to clean up. Homemade jam in jars or pots is more than anyone is entitled to expect. Thus, thankfully, about five miles from here, there is Simply Delicious Jams where we get incandescent homemade preserves. These are found just down the Pemaquid Harbor Road (of if you’re not at the moment nearby, you can order them on line via jamlady@earthlink.com). I recommend the Marion Blackberry. The self-titled Jam Lady sells them unattended from her garage. Thus, the Jam Garage.

On beautiful display she has Maine Wild Blueberry, distilled from those ubiquitous late summer local delicacies; Maine Strawberry and Maine Strawberry-Rhubarb (my second favorite); Old Fashioned Peach (I lied, this is my second favorite); Pure Raspberry (Rona’s choice); and, among a few others, Blackberry-Pomegranate (a little exotic for me in these climes). They range in price from $5.00 to $7.00 a mason jar and you pay by the honor system. There’s a box to stuff the bills into and in a large bowl there are a couple of fistfuls of quarters for change. Just perfect.

We began going there a couple of years ago and quickly became addicted to the jams that we take with us to the diner where they are an ideal accompaniment to Doug’s biscuits, muffins, and, especially the blueberry, to his steaming stacks of pancakes.

But the Jam Garage is not just about jam. There is something else about the place that draws us. Set in a meadow that lopes gently to Lockhart Cove, it also partakes, in that rural splendor, of the magic of theater. Like a stage set, the jams appear each day as if by magic. The door rolls up with no stagehand or jam-maker in sight like a proscenium curtain set in motion by a timer switch that must be secured within the house; and the lighting is so dramatically designed, as it would be for some screen ingénue, to show off the jams’ best side. Even if they were not so delicious, rather simply delicious, the setting and the lighting alone would cause one to stop and try a jar of Patriots Blend, which is, as the brochure puts it, concocted from “New England’s two native berries—Blueberries and Cranberries—with a hint of Orange.”

Also intriguing, though we have made our way through enough of the Jam Lady’s jam to bring us back there at least a dozen times, we have never caught site of her of anyone else. Which is a surprise because her acres of meadows and gardens and berry patches are in perfect order. Just like the garage and the jams and her house and everything in sight. This unattendedness, the sense of peace it instills, only contribute to the illusion that the jams are products of artifice and nature—they are there like the grass and trees and bushes and wild flowers and the air and breezes off the cove. But also, like the gardens, tended to and shaped by the hand of man. Or in this case, woman.

We are thus left to imagine her and her life.

She must of course be from a long-established family. Going back at least a hundred years; or perhaps like Lynn from South Bristol, her people were among the original settlers. Thus the Jam Lady’s recipes must have been passed down across many generations. Maybe even the local Indians, who for the most part were friendly, taught her ancestors some of their ways. How to cultivate the wild berries so as to assure a bountiful crop year after year and thus could serve as a carbohydrate staple in their diet and thereby help fend off the inevitable scarcities that are a consequence of the long and harsh Maine winters.

And then, considering the homestead’s location near some of the best fishing grounds in early America, some great, great great-grandfather would have taken to the sea to fish for the bountiful herring or another relative from the distant past would have taken up ship building. Around these parts then, and still, some of the new country’s best wood-hulled boats—schooners then, lobster boats and cruising yachts now—were constructed from the native oak and spruce and hickory.

Maybe a great, great-uncle had taught in one of the area’s first normal schools or been pastor of the South Bristol Congressionalist Church. Or a great aunt had been a nurse in the Second World War and another had been the town’s first female lawyer.

Rona and I build up quite an imaginative head of steam while contemplating that Jam Garage. Something special for sure happened there, well before there were garages, and is, we are convinced, continuing until at least today.