Quoting my dear husband: “Given the fact that my wife loved Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books so much, her wanting to learn to make jam was practically inevitable.”
There may be an iota of truth to this. To be perfectly clear I am not a sewer or knitter or gardener or canner. In the blogosphere’s seemingly endless array of images featuring people creating very wonderful things no question, jam is up there in the pretty and the cool categories. Besides, ever since my second son got the Blue Chair Jam Book I have spent some considerable time ogling and drooling and generally lusting after the ability to make jam. It may be that the photographs are particularly appealing.
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Unlike pie, which my mother-in-law makes to perfection in such a way that would, in my mind, exclude others’ need to even try, there seems to room for jam. She is an excellent jammer. She has labels any home jammer would envy with the green of certain, exquisitely interesting heirloom tomatoes. It’s not even that I’m all that into jam. But jam is one of those things you can impress with, one of those things you’re always glad to have in your pantry. Homemade jam is one of those gifts worth more than the thing itself. Perhaps that’s because jam is like capturing summer, which, especially in New England, is no small feat.
As if I needed any more reasons to want to make jam, my family goes through a great deal of it. And more importantly, my friend Marci loves making it. She lives in San Francisco and her family’s visits to the Valley are always a treat for me. So, the idea of making jam with her was definitely cherry-on-sundae sweet.
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In a nutshell (or jam jar), we got apricots from Sarah at Apex Orchards on Tuesday. We washed, cut and put sugar on them the next day. Fast forward to Friday because Thursday got away from us and we boiled down the runoff and skimmed the scum and put in the fruit along with lemon juice and cooked that down.
Lucien put some spoons in the freezer for testing the jam’s jammy-ness and I put jars and lids in the oven at a low temperature to sterilize them.
Our spooning into the jars wasn’t perfectly neat. Our seal rate for the jars wasn’t 100%. Our jam is delicious. Our pride is over the roof. Our sights are set on the next seconds that come to Tuesday Market, whatever fruit they may be.
When I stumbled across our copy of Jamberry on the dining table this morning, I just smiled Cheshire cat wide. Oh, and I’ve got a funnel sized to help jam into the jar, now.
