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madbakerQ: 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.
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.
