lemon bird preserves

Nothing beats a great jam. When it’s spread on a warm English Muffin at my noisy kitchen table, my family will literally fight over the last one. Taking a treasured skill from her youth and adding french inspiration, Amy Deaver creates unique jams and pickles for her southern California business Lemon Bird Preserves. My taste buds are especially intrigued by her summer jam ‘white nectarine with rose geranium’, and her winter jam ‘lime and vanilla bean’. Check out her website for all her delicious flavors, and let her jams and pickles tempt your taste buds as we dive into Amy’s world.

-Angie

please introduce yourself!

I am Amy Deaver, owner of Lemon Bird Preserves, an artisan food company in Southern California. I live and work in Wrightwood, California – in the mountains just east of Los Angeles at 6,000 feet.

A few years ago, we took a family vacation to the south of France. Along the way, I found lovely jars of homemade jam. Inspired by these jams, I began making jams for family and friends and Lemon Bird Preserves was born.

what do you make or do?

We create handcrafted jams & pickles using local, pesticide free fruit from family farms. Our jams and pickles are made with all natural ingredients and feature the best seasonal produce. Our passion is transforming locally grown, seasonal fruit while supporting our local farmers. We make all of our jams in small batches in traditional French copper jam kettles.

where can we find your creations?

You can find our products in our online stores and at retailers nationwide.

(Check out Amy’s awesome website for a complete list of her seasonal flavors, or go to her etsy store for some cool gift ideas!)

how long have you been creating and is it your full-time job?

I have been canning for as long as I can remember. I grew up in the Midwest and started making jams, pickles and preserves with my family as a child. I have many fond memories that center around the hours spent together shelling peas, peeling peaches and canning fruit.

I started making preserves again several ago as we were planning a family vacation to France. I wanted to learn everything about the French culture – from the cooking to the language. When we returned from our trip, I started making jams professionally as a part-time business. A few years ago, I was able to turn my business into a full-time career.

where do you find inspiration?

I think I dream in flavors! I am truly inspired by the farmers and all of the seasonal produce available. In Southern California we have access to some of the best farmers markets around. Besides finding fruits and herbs at the market, sometimes a local honey might catch my eye and be paired together with some of our ingredients. I’ve also had local gardeners call us offering their fresh grown herbs. Last year one of our farms brought us dill seeds that had dried on the vine with ladybug pods on the stems. The next day we watched as ladybugs came to life from the pods! (And no, the ladybugs did not get pickled – we released them in the local park.)

what’s on the horizon for you and what you do?

We’ve been able to grow our business successfully over the past several years and this past summer we were able to build our own commercial kitchen facility. With our new space, we are able to expand in many ways. We now have more ability to create our products and more flexibility to work with our farmers when crops become available for us. We’ve brought a business into our community and hope to bring more opportunities in the future.

what would be your perfect day off?

A perfect day off for me is spending time with my husband and our 3 rescue dogs – Molly Brown, Eiger and Nadia. We live in the Angeles National Forest so our perfect day is right outside our door.