Writer Kim Severson,

left, and chef Scott

Peacock share a

market moment—

and a love for

American cooking.

These days, everyone i

So many people are in the kitchen we could

rename our country America the delicious.

The signs are

everywhere. Consider my friend Elinor. She and her husband,

J

J

Carl, had been saving for months to afford a belated honeymoon.

They were traveling east from San Diego. New York, where

1 live, was one of their stops. Hotels here can be cramped and

expensive, so I was happy to host them for a night.

About a month later, a well-padded box filled with jars of Meyer

lemc )n and Santa Rosa plum jam arrived along with a thank-you

note. That my friend knows how to make jam and loves doing it says

everything about the state of the American kitchen. Elinor is a young

woman who works as a tech nical writer and a project manager at

a university. She doesn’t have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen,

and she didn’t learn a lot of traditional cooking skills when she was

growing up. Although her mother was a good cook, career and

convenience made store-bought jam a much more attractive option.

“I think my mother made strawberry jam once,” Elinor said. Still,

the kitchen kept calling, especially once she started to make regular

trips to the farm stands that began popping up near her house.

Before long, she needed to do something besides freeze all the

produce she was bringing home. So she picked up a book and

taught herself how to make jam. Like so many people, Elinor

has joined the new American food revolution.

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SEPTEMBER 2010 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS

portrait photo JIM BASTARDO