Today was a beautiful summer day. The chilly marine layer of the morning burned off and revealed a hot, sunny afternoon. I passed a thermometer on the way home that said it was 82 degrees. In a car with no air conditioning, that’s hot. :o)
I had a little time, so I stopped at the Juanita Friday Market, one of the many outdoor farmers’ markets in the area. It’s small compared to the Edmonds Market or even the Lake Forest Park Market, but, thankfully, I was still able to find what I was looking for. Something I had been chasing for weeks.
Summer has always been and will always be synonymous with jam in my world. Summers growing up were filled with steaming jars, soup pots full of bubbling fruit and sugar and pectin, the distinctive POP of the tops sealing over the jewel-toned containers of jelly and jam.
A couple of years ago when I first attempted making jam myself, I made strawberry, apricot and raspberry. I decided at the time not to do blackberry because I was to lazy to deal with the seeds and most people get annoyed with jam that is full of seeds.
That year, my favorite was the apricot. It had turned out so good. Perfect balance of tart and sweet. Just delicious. It was, of course, the first thing we ran out of. Besides, it was my mother-in-law’s favorite. So I wanted to make sure I made some again this year.
But I seemed to be just missing the apricots. The first week we went to the Edmonds market, there were some there, but I knew I only had time for one fruit that weekend and it was the end of strawberry season.
The last time we went, there were no apricots. There were plenty of peaches which were not quite ready for jam making. But I thought maybe I was make peach instead of apricot. I’d go back in two weeks, when the vendor said the peaches would be right for jam.
I thought I had somehow missed the apricots this year. The growing seasons are so screwy because of our very cool spring and our lagging summer. So I resigned myself to go without apricot jam.
Then I went to the Kirkland Market this past Wednesday and saw them. Only one of the vendors had apricots, but she had them. With my dumb luck, however, I couldn’t actually buy them because they weren’t scheduled to open for another 45 minutes and I had to get back to work!
At that point I was determined. There were still apricots to be had and I was going to get them.
On the way to pick up G-man from daycare in the evenings, I would pass Juanita Beach Park. On Friday nights I would see the tents of the Juanita Friday Market. So today I decided to make a quick stop in to see if anyone happened to have apricots.
Lo and behold! One fruit vendor had apricots!!! And because it’s the end of the season, he was pretty desperate to get rid of them. After just missing the yummy little darlings for weeks, now I could get them for a dollar a pound if I wanted to buy a 22 pound box!
Let me tell you, it was tempting. But that’s like 9 or 10 batches of jam. There’s no way I have the time or the energy to make all that jam. So I settled for what was still a pretty good deal on six pounds and left it at that.
They tried to elude me, but I was triumphant!!
So I have enough ‘cots to make a couple of batches of jam and I got a flat of blackberries to boot! So it’s more jam making for me this weekend!
I can’t wait!!!
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