As I have previously mentioned here, Otis grew up in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, where numerous food traditions abound. One of the randomly occurring and ineffably delicious things that grow there are beach plums-- small, sweet fruit that make wonderful jelly and even more wonderful cordials (and much more-- there's an entire cookbook of beach plum recipes, if you can believe it!). The beach plums grow wild all around the Cape, including Wellfleet.

Even more importantly, there are locations in Wellfleet where the highly-prized golden beach plum grows. No, I don't know where, and even if I did, I would be summarily murdered by my mother-in-law if I revealed the secret. The golden beach plum is yellow when ripe, and has a slightly fuller sweetness than the traditional purple version of the fruit.

So this year, we received both regular beach plum and golden beach jelly from Jane, which I am excited to deploy. It's great on toast with cream cheese!

While we were in Wellfleet for the holidays we also got to enjoy a couple of different cordials with the fruits, including a brandy with golden beach plum that was phenomenal.

Overall the holidays were lovely and delicious, with the traditional seafood Newburg from the Provincetown Seafood Cookbook, and my grandmother-in-law's traditional French-Canadian meat pie (google tourtiere for recipes).

It's nice to be home, though...I have three more weeks off from school, which I plan to fill with household activities, including lots of baking. I received a checkerboard baking pan set, and I hope to experiment with cakes a little more exciting than chocolate and vanilla. Any suggestions?