Kerrie Sanson’s culinary career began with a splash.

She was on vacation in Cabo, in between things; the immunology research laboratory she had worked at for eight years had just closed down.

As she relaxed on the beach and contemplated her future, she admired a fleet of big, beautiful yachts.

“How does anyone get a job on a boat?” she wondered.

She didn’t wait long to get an answer.

Samson swam out to the nearest yacht and put her question to the captain, who serendipitously declared that their chef was leaving in about a month, and did Sanson have any experience?

Maybe not the kind the captain had in mind, but Sanson nailed her interview and got the job. Chemistry was like cooking, and she wanted the change badly.

“It was almost a survival thing,” she said.

She dug her oars in, graduating to larger and larger boats, and when she had her daughter, she moved to Bainbridge Island and rolled into catering. Intent on sharpening her skills, she snagged a spot in IslandWood’s kitchen, where she became a pupil of Greg Atkinson.

Then, after a stint at the Seattle Culinary Academy and a year at Marche, Sanson went solo as the executive chef at Heyday Farm, where the seeds for Preserve, her new small-batch canning business, began to germinate.

At the time, Sanson had way too much produce on her hands.

“We had to process all of the back stop of fruits and vegetables that came off the farm and so I needed to be creative,” she said.

She pickled more than 800 jars one year, and then dabbled with jams.

“And the more I did it, the more I loved it,” Sanson said.

It was so satisfying that, last October, she decided to quit her job and dive full-force into handcrafted condiments.

First came the licensing. According to Food and Drug Administration requirements, Sanson had to have each recipe scrutinized by a process authority. The process can be long — taking up to six months — and expensive; each recipe submission cost $250.

But for the former chemist, it was fun. This was her language.

“I’d have hour-long conversations with my process authority on how to slightly, slightly tweak a recipe to alter the heat penetration or the pH,” Sanson said.

March brought Preserve’s grand debut, first at Bay Hay & Feed and then the Bainbridge Island Farmers Market, where Sanson now mans a booth.

Her banner advertises tomato jam, onion relish, cherry mostarda, fig jam and orange marmelade, but in reality, Sanson’s offerings depend on the season. And she’s not going to let the signage contain her.

Recently, she’s been slathering strawberry rhubarb jam on to crackers with fromage blanc for samplers. In two months, she’ll add bread and butter pickles to the lineup, and she has plans to make plum products, too.

The fig jam will probably be a late summer addition. It’s unavailable only because, locally, it’s not picking time yet. Sanson sources from island farms when she can, though she also looks to Kitsap purveyors and treks to Eastern Washington for her organic Chelan reds.

A batch of jam, cooked down in 90 minutes in a friend’s commercial kitchen, yields only two dozen jars. So Sanson has to process again and again. But she enjoys the slow pace, the formula, the steps. “It’s not a process you can rush or shortcut,” she said. “I like it because it’s very calming; it’s satisfying, too.”

Jam on it

Preserve products come in both 4 oz. ($6) and 8 oz. sizes ($12). They can be found at the Bainbridge Island Farmers Market, Bay Hay & Feed and the Heyday Farm Store, which is going through a remodel and will reopen in several weeks.