Good Food: Girl Meets Dirt Shiro Plum with Mint Preserves
Eating healthy should still be delicious.
By Kate Malin
There are not many people who are brave enough to walk away from a successful career on Wall Street to move across the country to a small island to take up preserve making, but Audra Lawlor, the founder of Girl Meets Dirt, did just that and lived to tell the tale. She and her husband left the big city to settle on and farm five acres of land off the coast of Washington State on Orcas Island. There they grow, buy, and forage for fruit and herbs that they preserve by hand using traditional French methods, capturing the bountiful tastes of summer for the coming months of cold.
Shiro Plum with Mint is one of the preserves Audra made the first summer on the island. Picked from a tree already growing on the farm, the Shiro plums pair magnificently with the spearmint that Audra found growing wild nearby. All she adds is organic cane sugar and organic lemon juice for a bright and intense jam, chunky with pieces of ripe fruit. A versatile preserve that works well with both the sweet and the savory, Audra recommends serving a dollop with toast and cheese for a classic pairing.
Girl Meets Dirt Shiro Plum with Mint Preserves is available at girlmeetsdirt.com and in stores across the country. Girl Meets Dirt is part of the Good Food Awards, a project to honor food and drink producers making the sort of food we all want to eat – tasty, authentic and responsible, and a proud member of the Good Food Merchants Guild, national association uniting American craft food businesses to connect, convene and promote Good Food businesses of all sizes.
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From her grassroots work at the Good Food Awards to her continued education at NYU’s Food Studies Master’s Program, Kate Malin brings an unparalleled passion for great food and good people.
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