Plain Goods x V Smiley Preserves
An ode to New England, plain spokenness and the traditions we keep.
Home is New England. It's where towering Black Locust thickets meet the gable end of a Cape Cod style house. Home is clapboards, often painted white surrounding a hearth at the center of the house.
Ten years in business, and 8 years living in my childhood, Vermont home (pictured above) transformed my relationship and confidence with tradition.
This line of classic flavors, jam Americana, finds its perfect home with Michael & Andrew of Plain Goods who are longtime New England wholesale partners and friends. We share an east coast - west coast split rooted-ness and the cues that go with those settings. East Coast formality, West Coast dreaming. The hover of garden and home. And we share queerness plus a love for fashion and the way that industry thinks of each season as a god damn EVEEENNT.
1 jar of each Classic Flavor from the PG x VSP Collection.
Our cooler temps seasonal flavor with Plain Goods is Apple Butter. Is there a more classic autumnal preserve? This year we made our apple butter with Dolgo Crabapples, Ashmead Kernel and Honeycrisp Apples from Addison County Vermont while taking a Masala Chai approach to spicing the fruit butter with the addition of a dash of white pepper. Combined with whole vanilla beans, the aromatic mix is “comfort with pep”.
There are multiple approaches to making fruit butter. Traditionally, butters are minimally sweetened and use less added sugars. We take a light touch with the honey (apples can be so sweet just on their own!) and cook our butters quickly like our jams. This maintains the juicy, fresh fruit flavor and keeps the honey and/or sugar flavor from taking over.
This apple butter contains: apple, honey, lemon juice, vanilla bean, ceylon cinnamon, clove, allspice, white pepper, nutmeg.