I think it's supposed to be sunny and warm sometime soon. That's what I've always experienced in Portland since moving here in 2002 at least. Since our summer growing season is so short here I feel ripped off when fall rain and grey overstays its welcome into spring, now verging on summer. I recently looked at some photos from last season's garden and this early June one made me particularly sad...
Some of my from seed plants this time last year.
Alas, alas summer will be here at some point and my seedlings will take off and all of those fruits on the vine and trees will ripen up for picking. We have quite a lot of fruit in our yard -- plums, pears, blueberries, raspberries, honeyberries, seaberries, kiwi, pineapple guava and then some. Usually we eat most of it fresh but as the trees mature and the berry bushes get bigger the yield spills over and we make things to carry through the season and into the fall and winter like plum and cherry wine, kiwi preserves and fruit spiked hot sauces and salsas.
I'm really looking forward to reaching for that book in the photo above -- Linda Ziedrich's The Joy of Jams, Jellies, and Other Sweet Preserves this summer and fall when the harvest basket is full. In its pages are 200 recipes divided into various fruit chapters ranging from apple, blackberry, cherry and grape to gooseberry, medlar, papaya, pomegranate and kumquat.
None of Ziedrich's recipes call for commercial pectin. The only pectin Ziedrich uses is the natural kind, the kind already present in the fruit. Here are a few recipes in the book -- coconut caramel jam, rose hip butter, lemon curd, cataloupe jam with mint, cider syrup and raspberry vinegar.
Linda Ziedrich is one of my favorite Oregon food writers and I've written about her a bunch. She's responsible for one of my favorite and most used cookbooks after all -- The Joy of Pickling.
All of our conversations had been over the phone (she lives on a farm near Scio) until earlier this spring when I finally got to meet her in Portland at the IACP Culinary Book Fair. We talked for awhile and she was kind enough to sign her newest book which I bought there...
Thank you Linda Ziedrich.
The Joy of Jams, Jellies, and Other Sweet Preserves by Linda Ziedrich 2009, Harvard Common Press Paperback $17.95