By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

I am writing this in advance of a short vacation to Maui. Last year, in early September, my husband and I were honeymooning in Hana.

We stayed at a condo, so we made a Costco and Kmart stop on the way for a cooler and groceries. But we ended up packing a lot more than we planned. September is guava season along the Hana Highway, and we couldn't resist stopping every few turns to pick "just a few." You don't get a chance to pick guavas on O'ahu very often, not to mention the small, red, super-sweet waiawi. We became typical city slickers out in the country, greedy and excitable, stuffing fruit into our pockets, jumping up and down like fools trying to grab branches.

By the time we got to Hana, we had eaten our fill and were wondering what we were going to do with the other two gallons. So I dispatched my groom to Hasegawa Store for sugar and cheesecloth. He came back with a large square of plastic window screen, which the folks at Hasegawa's swore was superior for straining jam. (They were right.)

I made a lot of jam when I lived in the Pacific Northwest, and it was always a worrisome task. I followed recipes to the letter and fussed about whether the jam would jell and the cans seal, and I had not a few failures.

This time was different; I had other matters on my mind. So I just cut the fruit and threw it in a pot with some water and went out to continue reading "The Hobbit" aloud to my husband. Once the fruit was cooked, we turned the pulp out and had a fine time giggling and trying to keep from being burned while we pressed out the sticky juice.

I didn't measure, just threw sugar into a pot with the juice and cooked it until it coated the back of a spoon. The result was a soft, rich-flavored, crimson spread somewhere between jam and syrup — so delicious we made sundaes with it that night.

We named it 'Uakea Road Jam for the place where we stayed; the name refers to the white mist for which Hana is famous. Later, back at my mother's in Wailuku, we packed the jewel-bright stuff in jars and gave it to friends for Christmas.

Maybe that jam worked because it was made without fuss, surrounded by love, and I didn't really care that it be perfect.