Valley woman finds joy in jars

EOWYN LeMAY IVEY-Frontiersman reporter

Making blueberry jam is hard work. First there are the back-straining hours spent on the tundra picking the wild berries and sorting out the stems, leaves and bugs. Then there are the hours spent in the steamy kitchen where the purple juice threatens to stain clothes, floors and counters.

Judy McKinley loves every minute of it.

"I'm a major blueberry fanatic," the Wasilla woman said. When she used to go hunting off the Denali Highway, the owners of a local lodge used to tease her about her love of berries.

"They'd say, 'Judy's in town -- the bears are going to go hungry,'" McKinley said with a grin.

If she had her way, berries and rhubarb and pickled vegetables would be her full-time job. She would be perfectly happy to spend her summer days picking and winter days jarring.

She's not quite there yet. During the school year, McKinley is as a special education teacher's assistant, and she says she enjoys working with the students. But she also admits that it's the time outdoors and in her own home kitchen that she treasures the most.

"I've done it since I was a little kid. We always went berry picking. We always had a garden," McKinley said. As a little girl in Idaho, McKinley grew up eating her grandmother's pickled crabapples, and to this day many of the recipes she uses are based on those she learned from her grandmother, mom and aunt.

The family tradition lives on. To this day, McKinley gets berries and vegetables from her mom's garden and returns to her parents' home with jars of goodies.

"Dad is just such a sweet tooth. For dinner, Dad would be perfectly content with a piece of toast with jam on it," McKinley said.

Over the years, she has also modified a few of the family recipes and come up with some of her own. Her beet jellies, for example, contain a secret ingredient that seems to be doing the trick -- she sells out of it every year.

McKinley is also always on the lookout for a new recipe, a new flavor to jar. This season, it's zucchini relish. A local farmer gave her a load of zucchini and she decided she would try making a sort of pickled relish out it. She will also make zucchini bread, friendship bread and other treats to sell.

Like many people with booths at craft fairs, McKinley's products began as gifts for friends. About 10 years ago, she was making batches of jams and preserves to give as presents at Christmas or other occasions, "instead of store-bought, commercialized gifts," McKinley said.

Then, the friends and friends of friends began to ask for them in advance.

"That made me feel good," McKinley said of people coming back for more.

But about four years ago, McKinley realized that to cover her own costs and be able to keep the pantry stocked she would have to start charging for those jars of jam. She also realized she might be able to turn her passion into a small business of sorts.

During these past several years, the idea has taken off. She began selling her jars of summer sweetness at local holiday bazaars and craft fairs. Now, each Wednesday, McKinley can now be found at a small booth at the Wasilla Farmers Market, and she's adding Palmer's Friday Flings and Eagle River's market to her schedule this summer. Jar after jar, case after case, McKinley said she never tires of making more jams and preserves.

"I think it's because of people liking it so much," she said of enjoying the work. "My grandmother always taught me when I was growing up -- do a nice gesture and it will come back to you."

She's got her product and her customers; all she needs now is a name for her labels. Judy's Jellies seems to have a nice ring to it, but she's leaning more toward something with "McKinley" in it. After all, the world-famous mountain is, in a distant way, named after her family.

"President McKinley was my grandfather's second cousin, or something," she said.

For now, though, she doesn't have a business name and her jars look like those a friend gives you at Christmas time, labeled with hand-written stickers that simply read "Pumpkin butter" "Strawberry-rhubarb" or "Blueberry."