Freezer Jam

Early in July mo mother-in-law stayed with us for nearly 1 week. I somewhat recently realized that one of the "benefits" of living a seven-hour drive away from family is that when they visit, they tend to stay awhile. Anyway, when mother-in-law arrived for this, he most recent visit, she stashed 2 jars of something in our freezer. A couple of days into her visit I asked her what she put in the freezer. She responded in an incredibly exuberant tone, "It's freezer jam.". Other than thinking, "What the FUCK is freezer jam" my mind was a total blank. I managed to follow-up and ask the dear woman, "what is freezer jam". I was hoping to find out the flavor and whether or not I could ever transfer the jars to the refrigerator. Her response was "freezer jam isn't cooked". I still did not have either of my questions answered. We had nothing else to do that afternoon so I decided to delve deeper into into this Freezer Jam issue. I began by asking the flavor, "grape, strawberry, raspberry?" She said it was strawberry which was great in my book because I love strawberry jelly/jam. Next, I asked if it had to stay in the freezer. Mother-in-law assured me I could move it to the refrigerator when we were ready to open it. Great! I finally had my answers.

Why has this month old conversation come to the forefront of my mind? I opened our first jar of freezer jam two days ago and it was quite tasty on our breakfast toast.

However, this whole Freezer Jam issue brings me to another pet peeve - mason jars. People who give me things in mason jars always want their jars back. These people do not live near me and I live in Manhattan with finite storage space. I fume every time I come across an empty mason jar that I am supposed to return to someone "the next time I see them" - like next Christmas, you want me to hold on to this for a year? I really wish there were regional depots for mason jars. People like me could return them and people who make things could pick some up. Doesn't this make sense?