Summertime, summertime, sum-sum-sum-summertime

[madbaker]

Q: When is it officially summer in the San Francisco Bay Area?
A: Forget that calendar nonsense. When you get fresh apricots!

I grew up with a mature apricot tree that bore several hundred pounds of fruit each year. It was sturdy enough (and I was light enough) that I could climb it, pick a gajillion sun-warmed apricots and eat them right there in the tree. Sigh. I miss that place.

But anyway - I bought a case of Patterson apricots (fifteen pounds) at the farmers' market yesterday from the weird peach guy*. That's the breed that they recommend for jam. So, an hour of washing, pitting, and slicing turned them into 14.25 lbs of apricots stuffed into my jam pot. In two batches so they'd all fit. They didn't boil down enough yesterday so I'll finish up the process today. Should get at least six pints of jam. The wife and I adore apricot jam.

Anyway, the smell of cooking apricots seriously flashed me back to my childhood.

Edited to add: the sum total was 10.5 pints of jam. Should last us, oh, several weeks...

* We nicknamed him that some years back. He's not really weird, just extraordinarily enthusiastic. He carries many varieties of peaches, nectarines, and apricots; some of the best stone fruit I've ever bought.

Comments

[corva.livejournal.com]

That sounds so wonderful. I am grinning and smelling the sweet glow of of it reading your words. The jam of my childhood was the wild blackberry. They grew everywhere, thick and sharp were the tangles around them and we all gave blood offering every summer for the pure joy of their fruit.

[blkeagl.livejournal.com]

I have similar memories of both fruit picking for my mother's family jam recipes (I have inherited the family mixed fruit jam recipe) and visiting family in the Middle East and eating the most amazing fruit staight from the trees.

Mmmmm...

[aastg.livejournal.com]

I've always thought that you can tell it's summer in San Francisco because the fog's alway in, and the turistas are freezing....

(Happy Jam, guys!)

So saith Mark Twain.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah.

That's why I said "Bay Area". I originally wrote "Valley of Heart's Delight" but decided that was a bit obscure.

(For those who aren't natives, that was the nickname for the Santa Clara Valley before Silicon Valley, when it was 95% incredibly productive orchards.)

[spiderdust.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm... I've been in a canning mood myself lately.