Apricot Jam, My Way

Apricot Jam is Liquid Sunshine. The season for ripe apricots is fleeting, carpe diem personified.

The apricots know we prize them, and we cherish the labor that in turn brings the fruit to the table.

My grandma Ethel made jam— she made everything— and like most greedy grandchildren, I inhaled everything she prepared and never took the foreplay seriously. I’d wander out to my uncles’ orchards with my little basket, pick a few berries, eat a few berries, reach for the fruit over my head. Easy-peasy, right? But the time I got old enough to say, “Hey, how DO you make jam? Is it hard?”— Ethel was gone.

What I discovered as a grown-up is that if you can get to where the fruit is grown— an orchard, a farmer’s market, maybe your lucky garden— jam is your sugar and fire birthright.

It is easy, it’s all about timing. Once you begin, you keep moving, you don’t stop.

My recipe is also easy because it requires using a dishwasher. That’s how you’ll sterilize the jars fast. You can only do this method with berry and stone fruit jam, which is high in acid and sugar! Not other preserves.

Once you pick or buy the ripe fruit, you have to make jam within a day. Apricots are not waiting for anyone.

The sneaky thing to do, if you want to save them for jam-making on winter days, is this: After processing apricots, bag them in 1-gallon ziplock bags with a ¼ cup of fresh lemon juice as preservative. Put in refrigerator or freezer until you are ready to start making the jam.