Jamming

My small maple cutting board is pink right now. It's been seeing a lot of plum action.



Ever since a kind coworker brought me some fragrant, ripe Santa Rosa plums from her tree, I've been making jam. I gave her a jar from each ofmy first two batches -- a basic fruit/sugar/lemon juice recipe, and one with orange juice and zest to give it a little bit of depth -- and she rewarded me by bringing in another fifteen pounds or so of fruit.

That is a lot of plums.

If you put them all in one paper grocery bag they would fill it. (You would not do that, of course, because the fruit in the bottom half of the bag would become mush and that would be very, very sad. And purple.)



I keep jam batches fairly small so I had enough fruit to make at least four more types of plum jam. (I would've had more than that but I couldn't start for a couple days, and sadly many of the very ripest plums had Moved On.) I'm moving into wacky Christine Ferber recipe territory and using mint, Alsatian wine,* vanilla, honey, and lemon slices (but not all at the same time because that would be overkill).



I am pleased with the output, but I am also relieved my coworker has left for a three week vacation. I think that by the time she comes back, she will find that her tree is Done For The Season. And I? Will be off the hook.**



(I also hope she has someone picking things up at her house while she's gone because otherwise, when she comes back, she may discover that her yard is full of stumbling, confused wasps, drunk on fermented plums.)

* No that does not mean it's German Shepherd flavor. Ew.

** I am an admitted canning dilettante and am glad I am not a farm wife*** who has to preserve (or lose) the harvest. I would have been the most horribly complainy pioneer ever.

*** My friend Anno, who actually is a farmer, sent me a postcard today telling me that last month she put up TWENTY jars of strawberry jam. What a show off.

**** This footnote is not attached to anything but I thought I'd add that I left the peels on for all but the last batch of jam I made... and of course now I wish I'd done that with most of the others. Hmph.