Girding my loins for this morning’s annual mammogram with the final #jamvent flavor: peach-black currant-sichuan pepper. Vehicle: toasted sourdough with salted butter. Mostly black currant and the tiniest hit of heat, not much peach. I wanted this to be much more intense than it was. B+.

Two slices of sourdough toast with rhubarb-strawberry spread on a dark blue plate.

Penultimate leftover #jamvent: Rhubarb strawberry. I prefer when it’s more strawberry-forward. Vehicle: toasted sourdough with salted butter. The sharpness of the rhubarb has been so tempered (but not over sweetened at least) that it isn’t really all that distinctive an experience. B.

A light blue plate with a hunk of goat cheese, some wheat thins, and a wheat thin spread with goat cheese and apricot lavender spread, plus a butterknife.

Leftover #jamvent #2 today: Apricot-lavender spread. Vehicle: wheat thins with goat cheese. I had been holding this one back because I’m VERY picky about lavender as a flavor in food, but I’m pleasantly surprised. Solid apricot flavor, with just a hint of light floral at the end. B+.

Toasted challah slices with cherry-violet spread and butter on a light blue plate, flanked by a green napkin and a black Tigger mug of coffee.

Leftover #jamvent this morning: cherry-violet leaves. Vehicle: toasted challah with salted butter. This is pretty good. Mostly cherry, just a whisper of floral on the back end, not enough to taste perfume-y, which is my usual complaint about floral-based flavors. B+

October, November, & December 2025: Plays, poems, and preserves October, November, & December 2025: Plays, poems, and preserves

Two slices of sourdough toast with wild blueberry lychee rose spread sitting on a light blue plate.

It’s another leftover #jamvent day. Today’s flavor is Wild blueberry-lychee-rose. Vehicle: sourdough toast with salted butter. I was afraid this would be rose-heavy, and unfortunately, it’s not *anything* heavy. I get mild blueberry, and not much else. B.

Two slices of sourdough toast with mandarin spread on a light blue plate with a paper towel as a napkin.

Leftover #jamvent: mandarin spread. Vehicle: toasted sourdough with salted butter. B+. This is basically a sweeter marmalade with fewer bits in. It’s good, but not life-changing.

Two slices of sourdough toast with butter and strawberry-passion fruit spread on a light blue plate.

Leftover #jamvent flavor to start the new year: strawberry passion fruit. Vehicle: toasted sourdough with salted butter. The need to balance the passion fruit means less intense strawberry than I’d hoped. B. This is fine, but not super-exciting.

A small box labelled bonne maman inside a red and white patterned advent calendar. The door picture is santa and his sleigh

A small rectangular wooden xmas ornament, layers of flat wood shapes inside a box framr create a scene of a stag in front of an Xmas tree, lit from behind by a small warm light.

#Jamvent #AdventsLive25 the finale: not sure if I’m pleased or disappointed that it’s not jam!

Two slices of ciabatta with goat cheese and orange-yuzu-grapefruit spread on a dark peacock blue plate.

Today’s leftover (from day 16) #jamvent flavor is a returning fave: orange-yuzu-grapefruit. Vehicle: toasted ciabatta with goat cheese. Perfect balance of sweet and pucker with a great citrus punch. I want MORE YUZU in things, it’s great. A.

Day 16 allthingslinguistic: > allthingslinguistic: > >> # This is my Jam >> >> 1 book from my shelves thematically paired with each day’s jam from the Bonne Maman jamvent calendar. >> >> ## Day 1 >> >> Maple blueberry, a classic Canadian flavour combo (featuring the France French name “myrtille” instead of the Canadian French “bluet” for the fruit) paired with Linguaphile: A life of language love by Julie Sedivy, about the author’s childhood in Montreal and subsequent psycholinguistics research into language and the mind. >> >> ## Day 2 >> >> Fig cardamom paired with Talking Hands, in which journalist Margalit Fox goes along with linguists documenting Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language and writes up a history of sign language linguistic research (and eats a few figs and dates) along the way. >> >> ## Day 3 >> >> I had to look up two words from the name of this jam, both of which turned out to be familiar foods viewed differently (Quetsches et Poires à la Badiane: prune plum and pear with anise), so I’ve paired it with Hellspark, Janet Kagen’s sf book of translation and cultural miscommunication, which several @lingthusiasm listeners told us to read and they were EXTREMELY RIGHT. > > ## Day 4 > > Cerise and violette are both foods that double as colour terms, so today is Kory Stamper’s True Color, about the history of writing colour definitions in black and white dictionaries. This is my advance copy but it’s coming out next year and I highly recommend it! > > ## Day 5 > > Apple cinnamon caramel, with Babel by RF Kuang: an initial rush of sweetness, a lingering aftertaste that’s far more complex. A book about the tension of translation as powerful magic > > ## Day 6 > > Lavender and apricot are foods that underwent long and meandering journeys through the ancient world to get to us today, so I’m pairing them with The Odyssey (translation by Emily Wilson) > > ## Day 7 > > Coffee caramel spread paired with The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin (whose geology-based swear word system I loved linguistically) for their extensive histories of systemic exploitation > > ## Day 8 > > Lemon verbena white nectarine and peach with The Language Lover’s Puzzle book by Alex Bellos. This wordlist feels like the intro to a word problem, and this book contains language puzzles in profusion, plus solutions if you get stuck & context notes on the languages! > > ## Day 9 > > Vanilla caramel, a classic flavour, with the oldest pop linguistics book I own, a copy of Language Made Plain by Anthony Burgess (yes, the Clockwork Orange guy also wrote an intro to linguistics: the penciled flyleaf reminds me I bought it used for 50¢, in high school) > > ## Day 10 > > Blueberry, lychee, rose jam paired with To Shape A Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose. An Indigenous girl learns to work with a dragon in an alt history of American colonization (with really interesting linguistic elements) plus a jam featuring fruits from both places > > ## Day 11 > > Pineapple, rum, and vanilla gives me old and golden vibes that I’m pairing with Bea Wolf: Zach Weinersmith’s retelling of Beowulf as a kids fable in full Anglo Saxon meter. It’s glorious. > > ## Day 12 > > Raspberry redcurrant jelly with Babel: Around the world in twenty languages by Gaston Dorren. Redcurrant makes me think of Europe, so I’ve paired it with this Dutch writer’s window into the twenty most spoken languages of the world. > > ## Day 13 > > Did you know that a word for honey but not for bees has been reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European, leading to theories that they traded for honey? Honey apricot with Proto: How one ancient language went global by Laura Spinney > > ## Day 14 > > When I visited Australia a few years ago it was mango season, so I’ve paired this ginger mango jam with Gesture: A Slim Guide by Lauren Gawne, who’s my cohost on @lingthusiasm and the reason I was there! > > ## Day 15 > > Orange guava lime jam with Language City by Ross Perlin. (I promise the real cover is more eye-catching than my advance copy!) Stories of the 700 languages actively spoken in New York City, by the same processes of human movement that let me eat guava today in snowy Montreal ## Day 16 Orange yuzu grapefruit marmelade paired with Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn for their shared Z. It taught me what an episolary novel and a pangram were as a young person and cemented my @lingthusiasm partnership with @superlinguo early on when we realized we were both fans of it ## Day 17 Cinnamon clementine pear, a bright yellow jam which I found particularly delicious, paired with a bright yellow Because Internet that I wrote myself! ## Day 18 Pink peppercorn and cherry with a spicy book of gestures that I apparently acquired in high school at some point and forgot about until rediscovering it in a box recently? ## Day 19 Mandarins, Italian paired with Index, a History of the by Dennis Duncan ## Day 20 Blackcurrant peach with Sichuan peppercorns paired with True Biz by Sara Novic (my much-battered copy from taking it with me to ASL camp last summer), for the feeling of being simultaneously numb and on fire ## Day 21 Strawberry passion fruit paired with The Language of Food by Dan Jurafsky, since I’ve eaten both fruits under many names: fraise, erdbeere, maracuyá, lilikoi… ## Day 22 Raspberry lychee jam paired with The Art of Language Invention by David J Peterson: the multiple pronunciations of lychee/litchi reminded me of the retconning necessary to make some of the original Game of Thrones names fit in with the subsequently fleshed-out Dothraki language ## Day 23 Strawberry rhubarb paired with The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie: rhubarb is another word for nonsense, and the narrator of this linguistically intriguing book is barred from nonsense out of danger it’ll become true ## Day 24 Salted caramel paired with Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. I remember when the salted caramel trend was suddenly everywhere, which reminds me of this magical system relying on living usage

A beautiful wee bonne mamam woodcut shadow box decoration

Today was 24 of Jamvent and today we had this, whatever this is

Tasted of wood and battery

Was nice

#Jamvent

A scone with dulce de leche on it

Dec 24 Caramel with Salted Butter

Sweetie. You're known for jams. You're famous for jams. But la grande finale of your advent calendar is a new salty dulce de leche? Of course it's delicious but that's not the point. Jams are enough!

YOU are enough.

WE ALL are enough

see you all next #jamvent

A jar of caramel with salted butter spread and a box with 24 on it and a toy soldier near some presents.

A raisin bagel with caramel with salted butter on a dark blue plate.

Our final day of #jamvent ends with a sweet treat: caramel with salted butter. Vehicle: raisin bagel with salted butter. B+. You definitely get caramel, and a bit of salted butter in the finish (even straight from the jar), but the problem is it’s NOT salted caramel which is what I wanted it to be.

A backlit ornament made up of a plywood box frame with a laser cut prancing stag, Christmas tree and some small bushes and hillocks, and a tiny light inside. The light is yellow, so it looks like a misty dawn.

Dec 24: a bit woody, didn't spread well on toast. I mean it's a nice ornament but I was hoping for a larger jar of one of the more interesting flavours. #jamvent

So which of the Bonne Maman advent flavours rocked your world this year? #jamvent For me it was the nectarine, peach and vervain, though the mango and ginger was also lovely. In fact, all the ones with spices were great.

Rhubarb makes a fairly brown jam but very tasty

December 23 Rhubarb Strawberry

You never know with the end of an advent calendar whether they are going to pull out the stops or run out of steam. Bonne Maman has selected the secret third option: competency. Novel! Inspirational! Why don't we try that more often #jamvent

Day 23 of #jamvent is Strawberry Rhubarb, which for me is the definition of “it’s fine.” Goes into the cabinet for Later me.

a small jar of (as labelled) "Bonne Maman Mangues et Gingembre". Wooden counter top. Lots of tiny jars in the background.

Dec 23: this was excellent, mango and ginger. Really well done, loads of both, not too sweet. Quite soft set but I am fine with that. #jamvent

Mini jar of bonne maman jam inside a red and white patterned advent calendar. The door picture is a rabbit pulling the lid off a jar of jam

#Jamvent #AdventsLive25 late as totally distracted today doing xmas dinner prep (travelling tomorrow) but had this as cooking snack on fresh bread and while I can’t exactly taste the pink peppercorns something here cuts the sweetness of the cherries so 3/5

A small jar of "Confiture Bonne Maman cerises aux baies roses" on a wooden counter. There are lots of similar looking jars behind.

Dec 22: cherries with pink peppercorns. Identifiably pink peppercorn! Again, subtle, but present. Solid effort. #jamvent

Raspberry looking jam on a scone

December 22 Raspberry Lychee

The teens of December just seem to drag on and then suddenly it's basically Christmas? Completely blindsided tbh. That's right I'm surprised by the date despite having four separate advent calendars. That's how powerful my ADHD is. Oh the jam is scrumptious #jamvent

a box with the number 22 and a person holding a bunny, next to a jar of Raspberry-Lychee spread.

Two slices of brioche toast with butter and raspberry-lychee spread on a dark peacock plate.

Day 22 of #jamvent is Raspberry-lychee spread. I think I had this last year as well. Vehicle: toasted brioche with salted butter. B+. Strong raspberry flavor; I’m hunting for more than a wave in the direction of lychee, but I’ll definitely enjoy this nonetheless because it’s still dang tasty.

Basically just strawberry jam honestly. On a scone

Liko lehua passion fruit curd aka lilikoi butter

December 21 Strawberry Passion Fruit

Passion fruit undetectable. Tragic and upsetting. Ordering a jar of lilikoi curd immediately #jamvent

likolehua.com/products/pas...

The Language of Food: A linguist reads the menu by Dan Jurafsky next to a tiny pot of Strawberry passionfruit jam from the Bonne Maman jamvent calendar

Strawberry passion fruit paired with The Language of Food by Dan Jurafsky, since I've eaten both fruits under many names: fraise, erdbeere, maracuyá, lilikoi...

Day 21 of #BooksAreMyJam, in which I pair a linguistics-y book from my shelves with today's jam from the Bonne Maman #jamvent calendar

Mini jar of bonne maman jam inside a red and white patterned advent calendar. The door picture is a rabbit barrel rolling a jar of jam

#Jamvent #AdventsLive25 can’t argue with caramel spread! 4/5

A box with gifts on it and a jar of strawberry-passionfruit spread.

#JAMVENT day 21: Strawberry passion fruit spread, put aside as today’s breakfast is savory, but I loved it last year, so it’s another one to look forward to.

Mini jar of bonne maman framboises et litchee jam inside a red and white patterned advent calendar. The door picture is two rabbits making a snow rabbit

Belated #Jamvent #AdventsLive25 i really wanted savoury for breakfast this morning so had to wait for midafternoon to have this with yoghurt - surprisingly good. i was expecting it to be too sweet again but the lychee gives it a floral note and the raspberry is just slightly tart. 3/5

Amber jam on a scone, charming Christmas background

Mashup of the "face with steam" emoji and the face with hearts around it emoji. Emojipedia claims "face with steam" is the name of the huffing and puffing one which is not how steam or faces work but go off

December 20 Peach Blackcurrant Sichuan Pepper

A delicious peach jam! Pretty blackcurrant color! The Sichuan Pepper was so faint but it was there and it worked! I would buy this in a big jar but I'll probably just have to buy the calendar again next year!! Dammit dammit dammit #jamvent

a jar of peach-black currant-red sichuan pepper spread, with a box with a 20 and a penguin and toy soldier running across ice.

Day 20 of #jamvent is a new flavor: peach-black currant-red Sichuan pepper. I’m intrigued, but it is waiting for another day because I’m eating breakfast out before running all the errands today.