As we approach the summer solstice, long, hot days spur a growth frenzy in the garden. That explosion of fertility produces the excesses that I live for. I love being swamped by 100 pounds of the ...

As a fruit for preserves, the blueberry is tenacious. The taut globes hold their shape relentlessly — a quality appreciated in pie when, after a time in the hot oven, the berries burst gently. In the ...

This is the last installment of “L.A. in a Jar,” cooking columnist Ben Mims’ four-part series on preserving fruit at home. The first fruit preserve I ever ate was muscadine jelly. A woman in my small ...

As a fruit for preserves, the blueberry is tenacious. The taut globes hold their shape relentlessly — a quality appreciated in pie when, after a time in the hot oven, the berries burst gently. In the ...

Farmers markets and the vendors who populate them with table-bending piles of bumper crops and hard-to-find seasonal produce rarely sell every last item before it's time to collapse the pop-up tents ...

Northern lights dance above us this time of year and the first frost ripens the highbush and lowbush cranberries, and the first snow sparkles in the forest, making a blanket that protects our berry ...

Rai Mincey is a food writer and baking enthusiast whose focuses include culinary history, seasonal cooking, and Southern cuisine. She splits her time between Birmingham, Alabama, and Tulum, Mexico.

Mouth-staining, sweet-tart blueberry jam -- it's summer in a jar. Nothing is simpler, either. All it takes is cooking berries with sugar, plus a little pectin to help it set. So what's up with all the ...