Jammin’ on a Sunday Night

When you are living and eating seasonally, you go from scarcity to glut in moments. My fridge is like a tidal wave of produce rather than a steady inventory. This weekend, a huge basket of very ripe yellow plums landed in my kitchen. There is no room for hesitation in these situations; it’s a delicate window from overripe to rotten. I have learned to act quickly and I immediately pulled out all the super soft ones and threw them in the freezer and left the others out to ripen. This is probably one of the most essential elements of the locavore life; the dance between time and perishability. When you get it down, you feel like a food ninja.

I pulled them out tonight and invited Gowan over for jam making. Which really means talking about boyz, ducks, goats and her dreams of farming on a larger scale while I stirred the pot. If anyone can do it, this girl most certainly can.

What I learned tonight is that it is tremendously challenging to stir a pot of jam with your right hand and simultaneously shake a jar of salad dressing in your left. Even harder than resolving some matters of the heart. By the time we had solved all of life’s problems with bowls of potatoes (which solve everything) the plums had reduced down into jammy goodness. There wasn’t a lot so we didn’t need to seal them – just put it in jars to be kept in the fridge or freezer. Plums on Friday, jam by Sunday – boom. These are the sweet little victories that keep the shelves full, and sweet.