Gardeners, cooks and farmers all know, respect and sometimes love the cycles that circulate throughout our lives. Those cycles — the annual return of summer, for instance — mean each year we experience a whole boatload of firsts all over again, and if we’re hip to the general wonderfulness of life, we’re open to celebrating all over again with each first.
Celebrating matters more as we age — I think it’s the law of diminishing returns that shows us so clearly as our years diminish, we are moved to make the most of every celebration-worthy event, which naturally includes the season’s firsts. To that end, in our cellar, Dave and I have a bottomless supply of bubbles to mark firsts and other momentous occasions.
Last night’s supper is a case in point. On the surface, it was the essence of simplicity — my plate held a marble-loving alley’s worth of little balls, new potatoes drenched in butter, basil, chives and dill. Period. The first new potatoes, the first basil. The potatoes came by way of a trade with the gardener across from my mom’s home in small-town Saskatchewan: a bag of just picked saskatoon berries from Mom’s loaded tree for a bag of new potatoes just dug from her neighbour’s garden. That was some kind of yum — new potatoes have thin parchment skin, high moisture, creamy texture, sweetness and low starch content. All they need is not very much, as in last night’s supper — cooked whole, then rolled in minced herbs, melted butter and a sprinkle of salt.
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Then there’s the joy of greeting the season’s first apricots, first cherries, first peaches — by this time of the year we are so over asparagus and rhubarb! Move over spring, summer cooking has begun!
Come to think of it, those cycles of recurring firsts are true of parents too, especially parents who have recently become grandparents, or parents whose adult children have acquired their first home. Or any other milestone. My longtime friend Phyllis is a new grandmama, and her tales shared during a recent phone chat of helping her daughter with her twin babies triggered Phyllis’s — and my own — memories of being young mothers learning how to take care of our babies. What a scary project that is!
Likewise, when my sons and their partners bought their first houses, all of those firsts came flooding back. Learning how to edge a ceiling when painting. How to use a roller to avoid streaks when painting a wall. How to get heavy couches through doorways with staircases. How to get rid of unwanted shrubberies to make way for plants of your own choosing. How to dig a garden. How to — well, you can fill in the blanks yourself with all of your new and renewed firsts.
All that said, here’s a sweet and simple recipe for the first apricots’ metamorphosis into jam. Just imagine all of the memories that will emerge while eating it this winter in a chocolate cake or on toasted sourdough. So, first we eat, then we jam. Cue music.
Apricot vanilla bean jam
Vanilla’s floral notes are a warm counterpoint to the sweet-tart nature of apricots. Alternatively, add lemon zest — or, if you like the lemony-floral nature of coriander, finely grind some seeds and add them instead of the vanilla seeds and pods.
This jam is the bomb on vanilla ice cream and any toasted bread. In the baking kitchen, a thin layer of it up-levels a chocolate cake, nut torte or custard pie. Plus, this recipe is the ideal venue to utilize those forgotten hardened vanilla beans languishing in your cupboard. This jam darkens as it ages, so eat it within six months for the best colour. Makes six half-pint jars.
- 3 lb. apricots, pitted and chopped
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 1 packet powdered pectin
- 4 cups white sugar or sugar alternative 1 vanilla pod
Prepare the canner, then wash and sterilize jars and lids. Keep the jars hot in the canner’s boiling water.
Combine the apricots, lemon juice and pectin in a heavy-bottomed pot. Use a potato masher to mash up the fruit. Stir in the sugar.
Split the vanilla bean lengthwise. Use the tip of a small knife to scrape the seeds inside the pod into the pot, then add the two halves of the pod as well.
Bring the mixture to a rolling boil. Boil hard for two minutes, then skim off any foam. Pick out and discard the seed pods. Ladle into jars, add lids, seal and return to the canner. Cover, then process at a rolling boil for 15 minutes. Remove to a counter out of the breeze, cool and label.
