Why I buy my apricot jam
Monday September 24th 2007, 6:53 pm
Filed under: Life

mango and peach makes the best jamHere’s a recipe for the best jam on the planet: half peach, half mango. If you can find the Champagne variety mangoes (which this is not) and white peaches, dead ripe, then you’ve really found heaven. There, you can thank me at the county fair next year.

Back when we were newly married, my husband was working on his master’s degree and I was working; we were pretty busy, but not really, when you think about the natural chaos inherent with raising the four kids that came in six years a little later. So. I discovered a farmer couple where a couple of their apricot trees were set aside for her pin money, and to my great delight, she sold me a 27-pound crate of ‘cots for all of five bucks. But make sure you remember to bring back that crate. Sure, no problem.

Twenty-seven pounds! I’d been wanting to be like my mom, who would put up a thousand pounds of fruit in a year after our trips as itinerant harvesters at pick-your-own farms. Well, not that much like my mom; there were just the two of us to cook for for the moment. But I figured, I loved apricots, couldn’t beat the price, and it was a great place to start playing grownup.

We spent a Saturday together, boiling, cooking, sterilizing, freezing, putting up apricots in every form you could think of. Mostly bottled halves and jam, lots of jam. Rows and rows of jars, at the end of a very long and tiring day of hard hot work, gleaming, gorgeous, heathery-fruited jars of deep orange jam, the color of the early sunset.

And my sweet new husband turned to me, and with a gentle smile, confessed what he’d kept to himself the whole time: “You know? I don’t really like apricots.”

He’d waited till it was all done to let me know, so I wouldn’t be disappointed.

We gave most of it to his sister when we moved away. Not all, but most.


8 Comments so far
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Oh, wow. That’s love for him to have waited. Especially after all that work doing it.

Comment by Amanda 09.24.07 @ 8:16 pm

It sure was. I got a chance to love him back with it. By giving it to his sister, I got to show off to her what her baby brother could accomplish now.

Comment by AlisonH 09.24.07 @ 8:18 pm

Awe, that’s a neat story 🙂

Comment by Bev 09.25.07 @ 4:44 am

that is a wonderful story. i love apricot jam, and it is right up there with raspberry jam at our house. since i am the only one that likes it…it is all mine!

Comment by marti 09.25.07 @ 7:19 am

Awww…

I am almost scared to admit it, but I don’t like ANY kind of jam or jelly. Weird huh?

Comment by Lisa 09.25.07 @ 7:43 am

Oh, I have TOTALLY had that experience! My brother once lived about an hour away and he showed up with something like a bushel of cukes from a local farmer. We made pickles all day. Cornichons, bread and butter, every kind. My husband helped a little, but felt sick with a cold. My brother left with half the pickles, and then my husband said, “I only like dill pickles.” I ate a ton of pickles that year! (I still can, too, but won’t make bread and butters ever again…)

Comment by Joanne 09.26.07 @ 2:37 pm

Oh YUMM!! Wish that I’d known you back then….I LOVE APRICOTS!! Your Husband is an Angel!! All this and canning too 😉

Comment by Sheila E 09.27.07 @ 12:41 pm

What a great story! I LOVE your blog and am so glad you came by mine so I could find it! (I’ve been poking around for a while now instead of folding the laundry like I was supposed to, but hey, what can you do?)

Comment by madmad 10.01.07 @ 10:48 am



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