Velvet apricots are here, and so, jam.

Each and every year, when velvet apricots find their way to our local markets, I fall back in love with their simple, sensual beauty. Red velvets emerge first, and then their black velvet kin, at least in my area.

I am a stone fruit fanatic, but truth be told, I rarely enjoy eating fresh apricots. Too often they are mealy, mushy, and/or flavorless. But dried, stewed, or preserved? Yes. Now we're talking. 

A few years back, in the thick of my jam-inventing heyday, I happened on a combination of velvet apricots, pluots (a plum-apricot hybrid), sugar, cognac, and a touch of black pepper. It is both basic and decadent, its taste as divine as its jewel-tone hue. 

This year's red velvet apricot crop has beaten plums and pluots to market shelves, and so I had to tinker a bit with my recipe, to optimize for the basket of apricots I'd recently brought home. I suspected that a just-ripe nectarine would do the trick, and it did. I love being forced to come up with alternative ingredients- necessity breeding creativity, and all that.

It's been a while since I had (made) a few hours to make a batch of jam at my own pace. To take time to chop and taste and photograph and stir. The serenity that results from crafting something delicious and pretty, from start to finish, is something that's always drawn me to my kitchen.

This past Friday, as I ladled hot jam into sterile glass jars, screwed on lids and bands, and set the sealed parcels into their boiling bath, I thought about how much I thrive on focused creation. Whether it's working in my garden, writing an essay, or turning a few pounds of fruit into preserves that we'll enjoy throughout the next year, I need to regularly remind myself, especially during harried times like the end of school, that making time for productive, inventive pursuits is never time wasted. 

Hope all of my domestic friends are enjoying this long weekend, and to those around the globe, cheers!

Velvet apricot and pluot (or nectarine) jam with black pepper and cognac

Old-school Em-i-lis

The past couple days have found me yearning for leisurely hours in the kitchen. It's been a long while, too long, since I've felt I had any significant amount of time to relax in there and play around. I miss it, and have noticed that when rushed, dinners become more chore than pleasure, and I cut culinary corners in ways I don't like. 

Our spring has, so far, been an awfully wet and chilly one. There have been glorious days of warmth -heat even!- and sunshine, promises of lemonade stands and relaxed evenings on the deck with a cold glass of wine. But by and large, those times have been elusive, and most days are still "pants and long-sleeve T's, boys" rather than shorts and sunblock ones.

That said, it's spring somewhere, and the produce of the glorious season is starting to roll our way. It's the right time for rhubarb, and those beautiful pink and green stalks are showing themselves at our local farmers markets as are greenhouse tomatoes and herbs and the earliest strawberries. Asparagus is in its prime.

At the grocery, fava bean pods glow green and swollen, and plums, peaches and apricots are finally being trucked in from places north of Chile!

Perhaps I should thank the mostly-gloomy days of the recent past, for they have offered me quick moments in which to steal to the markets and have then shooed me back inside when the rains return. During the latter periods, the beautiful beans and fruits and tomatoes and greens beckon to me, and I have gone to them.

Shelling beans is an always-pleasant task, meditative, productive and grounding. Favas and borlottis are my favorites to hull, because my reward is a bowl of vibrant green or cranberry-speckled beans that only nature could conjure. Favas beg to be smashed with mint and pecorino and olive oil and a squeeze of lemon, slathered atop grilled bread slicked with more oil. Nothing this beautiful can be anything but healthful or a pleasure to eat.

fava bean and mint crostini

The smell of tomatoes alone is thrilling, but then the juicy pop of each orb's taut skin is the happiest salvo. The crisp crack of each asparagus spear's end breaking off at just the point that woody and fibrous gives way to silky and tender. 

the freshest pizza 

All of these ingredients make such delicious dishes but without much effort; that is the gift of real, fresh, seasonal food.

velvet apricots

Today, I made my black velvet apricot and Cognac jam. It is as delectable as it is pretty; looks rather like a jewel, really. I love recipes that freeze an ephemeral ingredient in time for later enjoyment. It's why I make mango butter even though straight-up mango, peeled and sliced, is our favorite way to enjoy them, especially the Ataulfo, or champagne, variety that comes out in late April each year.

I also made some old favorites this week including my farro with golden beets, candied pecans, feta and a sage-chive oil and oven-roasted rosemary salmon, and, perhaps most thrillingly, treated myself to this Meyer lemon tree on Mother's Day. I'm positively over the moon about it, and will feel equal parts Cher (from Clueless; remember when she reaches out of her father's office window to pick a fresh lemon for his tea?) and Martha Stewart when I pluck a fresh lemon from its boughs.

farro with golden beets, candied pecans, feta and chive-sage oil

Now, if only the sun will come out a little bit more and help us all dry and grow and ready ourselves for the next marathon of cooking and growing and rooting, it'd be swell!

Aprisauce

A tired gal (whose youngest son woke her up before 5 this morning; later, she had to pick him up early from camp because he had a 103° fever!) walks into her kitchen and spies a quart of pricey black velvet apricots with which she'd once planned to make jam. Shriveled and tired, jam fruit this was not! But to toss them seemed blasphemous, and so she figured, "Well, what's the worst that can happen if I pit and halve them and then toss them in a pot with sugar over medium heat?" You might suspect that catastrophe soon followed.

You would be wrong.

What came to pass was a glorious cross between compote and sauce, aprisauce if you will. It's smashing beyond belief, in both looks and taste. Tired gal took bite after bite, closing her eyes after each. Her brain, high on this delight, happily intoned, "What a find, what a thrill, please make this again."

Tired gal took one last bite before forcing herself to save some for later. She did not mention the concoction to her children and because she covered it with plastic wrap and put it on the bottom shelf of the fridge, it is as safe from her husband as the gold in Fort Knox.