For Iowans By Iowans

By ERIN CRAWFORD
DES MOINES REGISTER STAFF WRITER

December 10, 2006

Excerpt:

"Treat your toast to Mount Hosmer Jam's eclectic gourmet offerings. The Lansing jams were created by a chef and frequently use local fruits and berries. Tantalizing flavor fusions include Apricot with Vanilla Bean, Old Bachelor's Jam made with blueberries, raspberries and kirsch, and Blufftop Pear with Peach Dessert Sauce made with cognac. Jams are $5 each and available from www.mounthosmerjam.com."

For release October, 2006:

The Mt. Hosmer Jam Shop which overlooks the Mississippi River in Lansing, Iowa will be included in Midwest Living magazine featuring 'Treasures On The Mississippi'. Look for this article and related photographic series to be in the October 2007 issue.

Published - Monday, May 02, 2005

Lansing home to Mount Hosmer Jam Shop

By GERI PARLIN/La Crosse Tribune

LANSING, Iowa — Steve DuFord has captured summer in a jar. It may have been singer-songwriter Greg Brown who sang the words, trying to capture the nostalgic taste of home preserves, but it is DuFord who is bringing that taste to customers in Lansing and beyond.

At the Mount Hosmer Jam Shop, 681 Front St., summertime boaters, tourists and locals can stop in for a jar of apricot with vanilla, blueberry with pinot noir, cherry with raspberry and Du Ford's personal favorite, Old Bachelor's Jam.

On a recent April morning, the aroma of raspberry hangs heavy in the air as DuFord mixes up a batch of raspberry jam. A mash of raspberries and sugar sits on the counter while jars sterilize on the stove.

Out front, "granny bait" lures women into the cozy confines of the store.

"For the most part, it's a chick store," DuFord admitted. As the men sit on the porch, women come in to shop for jam, purses, jewelry and antiques. DuFord's business partner, Frank Ebersold, calls that granny bait, and he and DuFord make sure they pick up plenty of it on their travels around the world

The jam and other granny bait comfortably share space in an 1872 house along Front Street that faces the river. The small kitchen was added in 1900, and that's where DuFord concocts his sugary

creations, using a regular kitchen stove and recipes he has acquired through the years.

The shop, which has only been open since last summer, is the dream of DuFord's youth. Along the way to that dream, he worked at a newspaper, in a restaurant and at a bank. But none of those jobs seemed to be quite the right fit.

It was while in a long meeting at his bank job in Chicago that DuFord finally said enough. He typed up his resignation in the middle of the meeting, turned it in and walked out.

He had always said he would open a jam shop in his retirement, but he had not hit 40 yet. "My goal was 55 to stop working," he said.

"I didn't know what I was going to do," he said, but he knew he'd had enough of banking.

He went to his cabin in Mount Sterling, Wis., and started thinking about his future. And in driving around the area, he stumbled across the house in Lansing, and he immediately thought jam shop. His retirement dream was about to happen.

"Every summer when I came up here, I would make jam for friends," DuFord said, and the jars would disappear as fast as he could fill them. He figured strangers might like the jam as much as his friends did.

Last year, without having the store open the full season, he sold nearly 3,000 jars of jams without advertising. This year, he expects to sell more. But he's afraid to get too successful, he said, "because I dread the thought of having employees. I like that it's just me. I wish it would just stay Frank and me."

Right now, he can stir up a batch of 20 jars of jam before he opens the shop. On his "days off," when the shop is closed, if he works full tilt from sunrise to sunset, "I can churn out 100 in a day, but I'm exhausted and ready for my bed."

The locals were skeptical at first, DuFord said, wondering aloud who would buy his jams. But some of those skeptics became his best customers.

"Fifty percent of my business is local. Nobody has time to do this anymore."

And neighbors have come to appreciate the essence of fruit that continually lingers around the Mount Hosmer Jam Shop. One neighbor sniffed the air recently and told DuFord, "You're doing something with blueberries."

The jams range in price from $3.50 to $8 a jar but most sell for $4 or $5.

What you're buying is not just good taste, DuFord said, but a jam that is free of preservatives and chemicals.

"It's also nostalgia."
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A recent article as printed in the "Allamakee Journal", Lansing, Iowa:

Jellies and Jams turn gourmet at the Mount Hosmer Jam Shop

By Sandra Knebel
Steve Duford is young (thirty something), confident of his creative cooking abilities, and is the new owner of Lansing's newest business, the Mt. Hosmer Jam Shop, located in a remodeled house at 681 S. Front Street (near Walnut St). The house is easily identified by it's red exterior and spindled upper and lower decks

You might well ask "Is he crazy? He has nothing but jam to sell? Does he really think he can get $3.50 to $6.00 for something I can buy at the grocery store for half that amount?"

The answers are no, no and yes.

Perhaps the most obvious difference between the conserves, preserves, jellies, jams and marmalades Steve makes and those found in ordinary homes or local grocery stores are the unusual flavors that are the result of some very sophisticated cooking techniques. There aren't very many people who have recipes mangoes, choke cherries, alder berries and other harder-to-find ingredients. There aren't very many people willing to stand in their kitchen for twelve hours at a time to create 40 jars of jam. There aren't very many people who know how to caramelize, macerate or crystallize sugars and ginger. And when the recipe calls for items that require a trip to a specialty store in a large city, like root ginger or cardamom, the urge to make jam vaporizes like the steam from one of Steve's boiling pots. (Cardamom, sometimes called Grains of Paradise, is a pungent, aromatic herb first used around the eighth century , and is a native of India.)

Jam, as everyone knows, is simply fruit boiled with sugar to make a thick mixture that can be used on bread, sometimes pancakes, as well as toppings for some desserts. At the Mt. Hosmer Jam Shop, jams are not simple and they are joined with conserves (made with two or more fruits and generally used for dessert toppings), preserves (much like the jam we are used to with a thicker consistency, generally used with bread or toast and peanut butter sandwiches) and marmalades. The latter are made with the expected oranges and/or lemons, but have added treats such as rum and raisins.

Just reading the labels on the jam jars is enough to make your mouth yearn for a taste. There is Raspberry with Chocolate, ideal as an ice cream topping. There is Four Sisters, made with equal parts of strawberries, blackberries, blueberries and raspberries (yummy!) Other labels read Three Sisters ( mangoes, raspberries and peaches- all fresh, of course); lemon with honey and cinnamon (excellent with fried chicken); rum raisin marmalade; raspberry with chocolate; apple with caramel; orange with Earl Grey Tea marmalade; just to name a few! Lansing's 8:30 am Breakfast Group recently had a "Jam Tasting" with six of Steve's samples. All were wonderful; everyone had their own particular favorite.

Most Americans have learned from Chinese Restaurants that meats taste really great served with sweet or savory or spicy jams, jellies and preserves, prepared more fluid with less thickness. Steve also has some great choices for use with all kinds of meats, including wild game such as pheasant (Strawberry with Pinot Noir), turkey (any of the marmalades, particularly Rhubarb with Rosemary), venison (any of the richer berry jams, especially raspberry), chicken and turkey (orange ginger marmalade brushed on while grilling). In the near future, the Mt. Hosmer Jam Shop will have a special jam to serve with one of Lansing's favorite dishes - fish (think mangoes and jalepenos!).

One of the most versatile jams is called "Old Bachelors". It is made with fruit and has an alcohol base . Steve recommends "Old Bachelors" on oatmeal ("One of my favorites!"- he says) or add some sugar and Kirsch and serve with sugar cookies , bread puddings or fresh cheese. You can also mix Champagne with Old Bachelors for a very traditional French beverage.

You might also say that included in the unique tastes of Steve's jams is a cup of culture.

Other than the various kinds of jams, the Mt. Hosmer Jam Shop offers other international specialty items. The selection various depending on what he and his friends find in the flea markets of India, Poland, England and other European countries they visit. You will want to ask Steven for a description of even the most common looking item. The colorful pails, the German feather trees, the ginger jars, the biscuit barrels, the North Dakota baby brown bear, the Russian jewelry boxes made from birch bark from Siberia, fruit ornaments, etc. etc. etc. Everything has a story or is hand crafted in a certain way or comes from some exotic part of the world or has an unusual use. He also sells tea imported from England. Your purchases will be added up on an antique National Cash Register.

Adding to the enlightening experience of your visit, the muted red walls are stamped in a special gold leaf technique in affirmations such as "Dream tomorrow" or "Cherish" or "Live today" and other positive thoughts. Steve says the gold leaf process he used on the walls takes five days to dry. He says they make him feel at home, since they are the same as his walls in Chicago, where he will continue to maintain a residence for the winter months. "I love the opera, symphony and theatre," he says, "so I still plan to spend time with my friends in the Windy City during the more non-tourist months".

Prior to opening the Mt. Hosmer Jam Shop, Steve was in the banking business in Chicago. Prior to banking, he was in the hotel/restaurant business where he specialized in French cooking.

The Mt. Hosmer Jam Shop fits well into the eclectic mix of Lansing's businesses. What's more, as others have done in recent past with other old buildings steeped in local color, the house that Steve has renovated for the shop dates back to 1872. City Councilman Dick Roeder, in speaking favorably about the new business and renovation, said his grandmother, Alma Pottriz, lived in the house in the 50's and 60's. "There used to be a little garage in the back with an outhouse," he said. "My grandmother put a bathroom in the house and modernized it to 1950's standards. In the mid-60's, during the big flood, Grandma stood on her porch and fished in the river."

Roeder said his grandmother used the dirt floor root cellar that served as a basement to store her canned goods and other vegetables that needed a cold, damp place to be preserved. And even though it was her homemade bread that Dick remembers as being the best, Alma also made jams and jellies.
The Mt. Hosmer Jam Shop will be open Thursdays through Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.. The shops local telephone number is 563-538-3373.