Agatha's Table

02/20/2026

This is my public announcement that I have decided to close down my Agatha's Table jam company. Why? First, I've just lost my enthusiasm for making jam. It's become more of a chore than an enjoyment because I've been doing it for a number of years now. Second, I'm in my mid-70s now and the physical demands of the work (carrying boxes of jam, carrying tables, etc.) has gotten to be a little much for me.

Will I still make jam? Yes, but at a much lower rate and not under the Agatha's Table name. I will probably donate any jams I make rather than sell them. The Bella Vista Historical Museum will be the lucky recipient of most of it, as I will likely continue supplying Pawpaw Jam to the gift shop and I may also give jars of various jams to the bake sales when they have them again. Other than that, I don't know. I have a bunch of empty jars and lids that I need to use up.

Thanks so much to everyone who has supported my little company for the past several years. I really appreciate you more than you know!

09/24/2025

Are you ready for the Historic Cookie Tasting at the Bella Vista Historical Museum on Sunday 9/28 from 12-4 pm? It's free, fun and family friendly! We will also have a bake sale with it, with 100% of the money going to fund our new addition which is going to break ground next year. Please consider donating any kind of baked good to the sale and delivering it either Sat or Sun.

Of course, I will be selling my Agatha's Table jams too, with 25% of the sales going to support the museum. I am going to have 187 jars with me (I counted today), with very limited quantities of my native fruit jams, including Pawpaw Jam, Maypops Jam, Elderberry Jam (grown in my own front yard) and "Arkansas Black" Apple Butter. If you want them, better get them now. See you there!

09/17/2025

This is the brand new place to buy my jams. If you find yourself on Hwy 12 just east of Gentry, check it out! You can see my Agatha's Table jams in the bottom little picture if you look closely enough. I'm so honored to be one of the local vendors to be selling there!

See you tomorrow!
Open 10-6!!!

09/07/2025

It took three days, but I finally got all of the pears processed and into the freezer. Here's the final haul, 23 pints of puree! That should keep me for a while and make a lot of Caramel Spice Pear Butter, as well as Pear Almond Jam (which has become one of my best sellers recently).

I also dropped off a delivery of jams at the Fairmount Farm Market, which opens next Saturday right on Hwy 12 east of Gentry. I will probably go down to see it myself on opening day because it's in the cutest brand new building and promises to be a great place to shop. The building may be small, but it's climate controlled and exactly the kind of place where I want my jams to be sold. I hope that the owners, Kelsie and her mother, do well there!

09/03/2025

Yesterday, I was lucky to get a ton of free pears from Angela, a Bella Vista resident who has given me pears from the tree in her front yard several times over the course of 6 years or so. The tree doesn't always produce, so I was lucky to get them this year.

These are Asian pears, from trees that were likely planted a long time ago by Wilson Brown, a prominent farmer in the Bella Vista area now known as Metfield. His orchards even show up on a 1903 map at the Bella Vista Historical Museum. Apparently, there are more very old pear trees near Angela's house that were part of the orchard, too.

With the help of two husbands, we were able to collect 5 plastic bins full of pears like the one in the sink. I put it in there as I wash the pears one at a time and the clean ones are put into the bowls. Those three bowls are less than half of my haul! The next step is to cut and core the pears, then cook them and run them through my Johnny Applesauce Maker. Yes, it's a lot of work. You don't have to tell me. Heavy sigh of experience.

09/02/2025

I should be posting more, but I've been busy processing fruit and making jam. In my last post, we worked on elderberries. The first batch were juiced and put into the freezer ready to be made into jam, but the second batch was "open frozen" on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper. After they were frozen, I placed the berries into a plastic freezer bag because we expect to get at least on more batch.

I finally processed the maypops (in the pic). I washed them, cut off the stems, cut them into quarters and put them into one of my jam pots. I filled it with filtered water to almost cover the fruit and cooked them until pretty mushy, while stirring occasionally. Since it was late at night, I turned off the heat, covered the pot tightly and left it on the stove overnight to cool down. I was surprisingly still a little warm in the morning! I strained and squished all of the juiciness out of the maypops and got enough good stuff to make about 18 jars of jam. I was told that there may be more maypops on the way, too.

Today, I will be picking historic pears from a tree in the Metfield area of Bella Vista that was from an orchard that appears on a 1903 map at the historical museum. I can see a lot of pear processing in my future!

The biggest news yet (buried way at the end here, for my most loyal of readers) is that I was contacted by a brand new farm market near Gentry that's not even open yet, but wants to carry my jams. I am very excited about this! It's still in the very beginning stages, but it does give me a good excuse to go eat lunch at the Wooden Spoon. News to follow.

08/28/2025

One of the fruits that I've been processing recently is elderberries, which we have growing right here on our own property. Elderberries are a native fruit that can be seen all over Bella Vista, but these were planted by my husband last year. We've had two pickings so far and here's how we get the tiny berries off of the tiny branches. I use a wide-toothed comb.

I have two combs that I use and they are leftover from the mid-1960s, from a couple of hair straightening kits that I bought when I was in early high school. They were built to last! In fact, I still use the blue one every time I take a shower to comb out my wet hair. These combs will never die, but last well beyond the apocalypse and outlast even the cockroaches, on into infinity.

08/27/2025

I have been busy processing blackberries, pawpaws and elderberries, plus I'm about to work on 7 pounds of maypops, but I'll talk about those in some other posts. However, I just finished going though all of my vintage local cookbooks, then I selected and typed out 12 old time recipes for the next cookie tasting on Sunday, September 28th at the Bella Vista Historical Museum.

If any of of you would like to make one of the cookies for the tasting samples, here are the ones I've chosen. You get first choice! Send your email address to [email protected] and I will send you the recipes so you can look them over before making a decision.

Last year, we had 172 attendees and we'll need about that many samples of each flavor. We don't need full cookies for each sample, since they can be cut to be a bite or two for each person.

Date Pinwheel Cookies
Snowball Cookies
Mom's Molasses Cookies
Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Cookies
Ginger Cookies
Cookies in Layers
Aunt Nan's Oatmeal Cookies
Pumpkin Cookies
Candy Cane Cookies
Peanut Butter Cornflake Cookies (this is a repeat from last year because it was, by far, the top rated recipe)
Carrot Cookies
Orange Drop Cookies

08/24/2025

The fruit is cropping so fast at this time of the year that I am hopping to keep up with it. First, my wonderful pawpaw benefactor, Scott, has already given me a bunch of pawpaws and I have been processing them for the freezer.

Pawpaws are the largest edible fruit that is native to the 48 states (pineapples are bigger). Their growing area is surprisingly large, but no one seems to know about them anymore. Years ago, I offered a taste of pawpaw to a man who was in his 80s and who had grown up in the Bella Vista area. His reply was that "I don't eat meat". It took a while to convince him that I don't make jam from meat.

Pawpaws are not grown commercially because they are quite finicky to grow and the fruit's ripening window lasts about 5 minutes, so you won't find them in stores. You also won't EVER find Pawpaw Jam in the store, so if you want some, you'd better get it from me. I'll have a bunch of jars at the Historic Cookie Tasting at the Bella Vista Historical Museum on September 28th, but you can also find them at the museum gift shop right now, as well as the Hiwasse Mercantile. If you want something that is truly local, this is it!

08/24/2025

I just restocked Hiwasse Mercantile, so if you are looking for a good variety of my jams, now is a good time to go there.

I will be holding my next big sales event at the Bella Vista Historical Museum on Sunday, September 28th from from 12 noon to 4 pm in conjunction with a Historical Cookie Tasting. You'll be able to sample 12 cookie recipes from old Bella Vista (different ones than we did last year). We'll also have a bake sale to benefit the museum and will welcome all baking donations at that time. I'll post more info about this event as we get closer to the time.

Right now, I'm besieged (in the best possible way) by crops of pawpaws, maypops and elderberries, which I'll talk about in separate posts. In fact, my husband and I are about to process our own homegrown elderberries as soon as I finish writing this post. This is going to be fun!

07/18/2025

About 7 years ago, a woman who lived in the Metfield area posted on Facebook that she had pears on her tree in her front yard and if anyone wanted them, they were ready to pick. Of course, I immediately contacted her and went over to her house with my husband to pick the pears. When we got there, he commented that it was a very old tree. Knowing what I know about Bella Vista history, I brought Xyta Lucas from the museum to see the tree several days later and we both decided that it had been part of the Wilson Brown orchard, which is depicted on a 1903 map at the museum.

The tree is old and historic, but doesn't always produce. However, I've gotten pears from her several times over the years. One time, I called and asked if the tree had fruited that year and it wasn't until a couple of minutes into the call that she happened to mention offhandedly that she was in the car heading back home from her wedding. Yikes! What do you say in a situation like that? The world's fastest congratulations and goodbye.

This year, the tree produced again and I am anxious to make my favorite recipe, Caramel Spice Pear Butter, from a 1980s cookbook. The problem is that I am not able to pick the pears anymore and my husband isn't able to do it this year, either. I could really use the help of a person or two to help me get the pears. Ideally, an adult or teen who can climb a ladder to pick the low hanging branches, plus maybe a second younger person who is able to pick up pears that have already fallen to the ground. I can provide transportation over there in my minivan and if you'd like to have lunch (on Agatha's Table, of course!) or some kind of mini adventure, we can do that. I'm not sure when the pears will be ready, so I will let you know. Sigh. I've just gotten too old for this "climbing a ladder" stuff.

07/15/2025

Update- A while back, I made Cantaloupe Jam and it didn't jell. Not even a little bit. It was made from an online recipe using regular pectin and not my usual low sugar stuff (Pomona's Universal Pectin). The result was very tasty, but with a watery consistency. I asked for suggestions from all of you and the best one was to mix it with sparkling water to make a drink. I tried that last week when my friend Jess was over. We each took a sip from our glass and poured the rest down the drain. It was NOT good.

My next idea is to mix it with some more sugar and pour it over a cake that's had holes poked in it, so it acts like a glaze that soaks into the cake. I just don't know how well cantaloupe glaze is going to taste, even on a vanilla cake. I have a lot of jars of the stuff, so we'll see. Maybe the bees would like it, if it doesn't work out. Sigh, it's really tasty, but not very useful.