Summer Sweet and Sticky

Summer finally feels like it is fully here now that I have climbed trees and gorged myself on ripe, warm, drippy, sweet fruit.

For the first summer in many years, I've been doing more u-pick harvesting than neighborhood foraging as the late spring rains in the East Bay seem to have led to poor local fruit setting, including no fruit at all on my much beloved apricot tree. Luckily apples and pears seem to be setting nicely on my street, so fall may see the return to the eminence of foraging.

For now, I've been wandering further afield, east to Brentwood and down the coast to Pescadero, in search of the perfect u-pick farms. I'm very happy to report that this year there are more pesticide free and organic u-pick farms than I have found before, including some new favorites: Farmer's Daughter for stone fruit, Pease Ranch for cherries (both in Brentwood), and Phipps and Coastways in Pescadero for berries.

This week I've been obsessed with peaches and olallaberries, in a number of different combinations. Friday I picked 35 pounds of peaches, warm from the sun, and so candy sweet I must have eaten six or seven straight from the trees.

Monday was berry-ing and purple stained fingers.

(Olalla madness)

(Silly Sticky Stained Ari)

(Will the purple ever come off?)

Olallas (a cross between blackberries and boysenberries (themselves a cross between blackberries and raspberries)) are just finishing and blackberries and boysenberries should be starting next week. Anyone wanna go picking?

Jamming today I finally mastered the peach peeling using an ice bath after a one minute blanching in boiling water. I can't believe it actually works just like they say it will--the entire peel slips off in one piece with the gentlest touch!

(Naked peaches)

Jamming is not for those who don't like to get their hands dirty--it is seriously sticky work!

Today's yield:

13 jars of Peach-Olallaberry Jam

8 jars of Olallaberry Jam

6 large jars of Peach-Olallaberry Pie Filling (cold packed, no pectin, just fruit)

So far this summer season I've been intrigued by savory-sweet jams and by accent herbs and spices. My favorites so far have been Apricot-Basil-Ginger (subtle yet luscious) and the return of last year's fav Cherry-Rosemary.

Cherries remain my season favorite and also the most fun to pick with three to five year olds. Even I appreciate being able to pick fruit by the handfuls and fill 5 gallon buckets in 10 minutes!

The SOLD OUT Blues

So after less than 2 weeks in the jam "business", my entire wobbly stack of 200+ jams is sold out. What an amazing pilot project this has been! Thank you for all your support and enthusiasm for this jamming endeavor. I'll definitely be continuing with the jam making, but can't fill more orders until I build up my stock again. Stay tuned to this blog (sign up as a follower for automatic updates) for announcements when new batches of jam get made and are available for sale. Happy Holidays and Happy Jam Making to all!

Ode to Lemons

Today was Lemon Day. (And that doesn't mean it was a lemon of a day!) After patiently waiting and watching for weeks, I finally deemed I had a quorum of ripe lemons on my tree. I harvested a large grocery bag full and spent the afternoon zesting and juicing.

An improvised double burner cooking lemon curd in front, and a pot of candied lemon peel in the back. First I piloted two different lemon curd recipes, then I did the big batch. Learning: the more egg yolks the better. Yolks keep it thick and creamy after it's been reboiled.

Yield: 18 jars of lemon curd and 3 cups of candied lemon peel

The Great Tree Shake Down--Apples, Pears, and Pineapple Guavas

The past 72 hours have been a jam making and canning blitz!

First, a final harvest of a neighbor's pineapple guava tree. It was a duck and cover operation--a firm shake down of the tree brought pineapple guavas raining down throughout the yard.

Pineapple guavas are a fantastic fruit--small and oval with a tart green peel and a soft, gelatinous, whitish flesh. You can actually eat the whole thing, although most people prefer just the sweeter inside flesh. The flavor is like other varieties of guava but the texture is part banana. I've been experimenting with both jam (inside flesh only) and marmalade (peel and flesh). This harvest yielded a dozen jars of creamy jam.

Then, a trip to a friend's land up in the Anderson Valley. Fall in the Valley is thick with the smells of ripe apples and wood smoke. Two old apple trees provided a few bushel baskets of windfall (with a little help from another generous shake-down).

We cranked out the cider press and sampled the range of juices the different apples produced--from sugar sweet to tart.

The fresh pressed cider makes a great juice for canning so I made a trip across the road to a larger orchard for pears, added a little lemon juice, cinnamon sticks and orange zest, and canned two dozen jars of cider poached pears. Delicious!

Pears and Meeting New Neighbors

Last week I had my first experience of leaving a note in the mailbox of a neighbor I didn't know asking about fruit harvesting. They replied immediately with absolute generosity about sharing the pears from their enormous, old pear tree. In exchange, I left them jam from my apricot tree, and after processing their pears, returned to them some jam from their own tree. The experience was a classic in the reasons I love forage: As usual, the fruit was way too much for any one household, falling to the sidewalk, and making a mess. I was able to harvest pears from the very top of the tree with a fruit picker and give them back to the neighbors whose tree it was who hadn't been able to reach the top fruit. As I stood on the sidewalk picking fruit, other neighbors came by and chatted and I got to distribute the just picked pears to them. Not only was forage a re-distribution success, but I met a handful of lovely new neighbors!

Results: A dozen jars of Apricot-Pear-Ginger Jam and half a dozen jars of Apple Cider and Red Wine Poached Pears.