Today we’d like to introduce you to Becky Lang.
Becky, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My grandmother Opal taught me to make jelly the first year I was married in 1976. We had very little money for holiday gifts to give at our large extended family gatherings and I wanted to make use of the pomegranates in the backyard. For many years that was the reason to make jelly, grandma helped me learn to make her apple mint jelly which gave me two colors to gift with.
As my family grew to five with three children, we picked fruit together and began making more flavors of both fruit and jam. There were many new favorites added to our pb&j menu along with a few mistakes of not tending the pot and scorching batches (the chickens still loved it though.
My husband and I have been involved in youth work for over 40 years with a lot of fundraising throughout those years. I began adding the pomegranate jelly to bake sale tables and it flew off the table. Next, I added Apple Butter from my grandmother’s recipe and it was a hit also. About 3 years ago we realized that jellies and jams could be a fundraiser themselves, so we put together boxes the youth could sell themselves to friends and family, It worked, we sold out and every student signed up to go on our community service trip got to go serve at 3 day camps and a couple food pantries for a week that summer.
Now we go to Craft Fairs and vendor events around San Diego County offering the jellies and jams along with Salt Blends and a few other surprises depending on the season. Jelly and jam are best from fresh fruits so our selection is very seasonal.
As the years passed I began researching recipes combining fruits or adding spices and herbs. Truthfully I was bored and wanted to play. The flavor combinations I use today add layers of taste surprises wether serve on toast, a cracker with cream cheese or a glaze for meat.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Finding fruit, herbs and jars at a reasonable cost to actually is the biggest obstacle. If I buy fruit or juice the cost goes up per jar if jar prices go up if the herbs in a recipe are out of stock that recipe waits. I, fortunately, found a couple backyard swap groups on Facebook last year and joined them. The groups have monthly meetings where folks bring their backyard produce and we swap my pomegranates for your persimmons…
The swap is up to you and the person you swap with to agree on how much of my fruit or herbs is worth what they want to swap me. This gives me a higher quality, pesticide-free fruit to start with. San Diego has such a great growing season and micro-climates so there is no end to even truly tropical fruit being offered at the swaps.
Finding sugar that I felt was the best match was an experiment until I discovered Zulka Sugar. It is pure cane sugar, non-GMO, and unbleached. Other sugars are a little less money but not non-GMO and that is important to the people that come to our tables at events. Eliminating butter from the recipe was the thing I realized I needed to do last year.
Butter is added (only a teaspoon full per batch) to cut down on the jelly/jam foaming while boiling. As the batch of jam or jelly begins to thicken the foam can remain so the butter helps fight that, it adds no other value. When I had vegans ask about the butter then decide to not buy a jar of jelly or jam I found I needed to fix this.
Then I remembered that my grandmother Opal had taught me to skim the foam off. Her original recipes didn’t include the butter because she lived in the depression era and having butter or using it that like would have not been an option. So now I skim and vegan folks love my jams and jellies. No animal by-products in any of our items.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Mission Orchard offers Jellies, Jams and Salt Blends and other seasonal items crafted in a home kitchen one batch at a time. Our seasonal fruit favorites, as well as standard sweet and spicy pepper Jellies, will add a flavorful addition to any meal. Our motto is “jelly is not just for breakfast anymore!”
Mission Orchard began by making jelly for youth camp fundraisers and now we sponsor a variety of youth causes and projects with the proceeds. We sent guitars, ukuleles and Cajon drums to youth in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico after the devastation of the 2017 Hurricanes. For the summer season of 2018, we are scholarship teens to camp from the San Diego area who are in the Juvenile Justice program through YFC. As well as elementary school age children camp scholarships.
You can find us at school fundraisers, local craft fairs, Lakeside VFW events as well as other local events around the county.
Our salt blends made from coarse salt use either Sea Salt or Pink Himalayan salt and are blended with a variety of herbs and spices. We grow many of the herbs ourselves and even some of the lemons, limes or blood oranges the zest added to many of the recipes come from. The salt blends are packaged in grinders giving you a fresh flavor burst each time you use them. The salt blends are suitably used as a finishing salt at the table or in your cooking measured as your recipe calls for.
Many of our jellies and jams have spices added that might seem unusual but they add layers of flavor to a common favorite. Cardamom is one of the surprises you will find in combination with mango or blood orange as well as our own Wassail Jelly recipe. Tajin in our watermelon jelly is a favorite with children and adults alike. Blackberry Basil jam can be added to a grilled cheese sandwich with bacon to make a comfort food “fancy”. Warning: if you try this plain grilled cheese will never be enough!
What were you like growing up?
As a child, I loved hanging out in the kitchen with my grandmother, when we first moved back to California from Colorado we lived next door. Her lunches were never the usual sandwich with an apple like at home. Grandma would mix warm leftovers, a chunk of cheese crackers with fresh apricots and we would talk about things a six-year-old needed to know. Like why she often ate with her left hand when I knew she was right-handed? Her answer ” you never know when you’ll need to be prepared for the unexpected, so I train my left hand.”
I began practicing with my left hand too. When I had surgery on my right hand as an adult, she was right! Thinking outside the box was what I learned from her and trying different things in the kitchen as well as life.
I loved being outdoors, playing hard, and then sitting in the arbor snapping beans for the adults to can, its an early memory. Now creating different flavor profiles in my canning takes me back to those summer afternoons. When first learning to can I didn’t see it as being creative like learning to sew or playing 6 instruments including guitar and mandolin, now though I have found the kitchen to be a place full of great creativity and often as therapeutic as playing my guitar in my she-shed.
Contact Info:
- Address: 10914 El Nopal
- Phone: 619-504-6965
- Email: beclang54@gmail.com
- Instagram: @MISSIONORCHARD
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1559874530959343/
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