Jam, jellies and more

LITTLE ROCK — When Maria Bradbury opened a store to sell her homemade jams, jellies, salsas, cookies and spices, she knew she wanted to help out other small businesses.

One way she helps them through Maria's Home Made Country Fare is by buying local ingredients. She makes a sweet and spicy pumpkin butter from pumpkins at Johnston's Pumpkin Farm and fruits and vegetables from Battles Orchard, both in Greenbrier.

She sells crafts made by local residents, including soy candles and body lotions, embroidery wall hangings, purses made out of camouflage material, knitting and wreaths. She also sells locally grown honey and gooseberry jam from a farm in Rogers.

"It's so hard to be business for yourself, and if I can help their business, it's going to help our communities," Bradbury said.

After years in the restaurant industry, Bradbury started selling blackberry jam and jelly she canned from berries on her farm in Damascus at Johnston's Pumpkin Farm. Each year she added more items such as pumpkin butter and salsa.

Bradbury started looking for a way she could sell her canned goods year-round. She found a store at 116 Broadview in Greenbrier and spent nearlysix months installing restaurantquality sinks and ovens so she could bake in the store, which used to be a trophy shop. She opened the store Nov. 8.

"My mother is Greek and my dad is Italian, and eating is important to us, and I just enjoy feeding people," Bradbury said.

She said a lot of people just don't have the time, or in some cases, the know-how, to can food like past generations did.

"I'm a hard worker and homemade products are time-consuming. Canning is almost becoming a dying art," Bradbury said.

Bradbury makes pumpkin and banana bread in a jar. Just slide a butter knife around the side of the jar to loosen it and out slides a jar-sized loaf of dessert bread.

In addition to jams, jellies and salsa, Bradbury tempts taste buds with a bakery case filled with made-from-scratch banana nut muffins, and cookies like cherrycordial and chocolate chip pecan. Bradbury has hand-dipped cherries in both white and dark chocolate, chocolate roses and jars of hard candy.

She also has a wall of spices in jars so customers can just get much they want in a zipper-top sandwich bag.

"You can put a lot in a bag and still pay less than buying a container of it at the store," Bradbury said.

The hardest part of going into business was developing a cost structure that pays the bills without making the products too expensive, she said.

River Valley Ozark, Pages 73 on 01/24/2008