Passionate about preserves

I love making preserves – primarily, jams and marmalades. And during the summer, when cherries, peaches, strawberries, apricots, and tons of other luscious fruits are in full swing, I can never resist them. I eat them fresh, and I put them into preserves – even if there are other things I ought to be doing. (As I remarked to a friend recently, “I really shouldn’t be allowed into a farmer’s market during the summer without adult supervision.”)

This weekend I needed to write ten artist bios for the book and do four exercises for my digital painting class. So how on earth did I manage to return from the farmer’s market with over twenty pounds of fruit? There must be a maniac sneaking fruit into my bag. Terrible, what these crazy people get away with!

Nonetheless, now being in possession of seven pounds of white nectarines, three pounds of mandarin oranges, four pounds of strawberries, three pounds of peaches, and three pounds of blackberries (plus fifteen pounds of cherries from last week and six pounds of lemons from our Meyer lemon tree), something must be done. So yesterday I prepped four batches of preserves, and will make them into jam and marmalade today. Here’s what’s lurking in the kitchen as of this morning:

Slated for this afternoon are:

• Meyer lemon marmalade
• Meyer lemon and Pixie mandarin orange marmalade
• Strawberry jam with rose geranium flowers
• High-acid white nectarine jam with elderflower liqueur

Other flavors that I’m planning to make this week include:

• Cherry preserves with a hint of rosewater
• Cherry preserves with a hint of orange and star anise
• White cherry-peach jam
• Blackberry-strawberry jam

What am I going to do with over thirty jars of jam? Mostly, use the more interesting ones in chocolates. I don’t eat many sweets, so oddly, while I love making jams and marmalades, I rarely eat them (except in chocolate). Of course this results in a ton of leftover jars of jam and marmalade. If they weren’t so expensive and hard to ship, I’d include them in my annual Chocolate for Charity fundraiser. As it is, I just make friends and family happy by giving them away. They’re delicious, so it’s never hard to find takers.

Meanwhile, in weaving-land, I was delighted to receive this photo recently from Vibeke Vestby, head of Digital Weaving Norway:

One of those is mine. 🙂

In book-land, I have now finished five out of ten bios and sent them off to the artists for approval; over the next two weekends I plan to finalize the manuscript so I can format it for the publisher. It’s due in 41 days. Not that I’m counting, of course.

And now, off to do some digital painting exercises! I have two required exercises and one extra-credit exercise to complete by Tuesday, along with ten sketches of personal transport vehicles. I’m going to start with a rainbow tank festooned with flowers, because that’s just how I roll. 🙂

I’ll leave you in the very capable paws of Ms. Tigress, seen here claiming my clean laundry. (I did manage to get it folded…but not until Her Mischievous Highness had left for her afternoon nap.)