apricot summer: a photo essay

summer is heating up, both literally and figuratively. i think of this as the apricot summer, the symbol of abundance and a diverse palette of flavors… sweet, tart, ripe, hard, soft — available…

Last night Justin and i visited some houses around my neighborhood, knocked on their doors and asked if we could pick from their apricot trees. In May, when i was in Finland, i traveled to North Karelia and visited Lasse Nordlund, who practices self-sufficiency living on a family farm. Norlund has written a pamphlet that has been translated into English under the title The Foundations of Our Life. In the final chapter of text, he recapitulates his method for preserving berries and fruit without using sugar, that basically involves turning the jars upside down on a daily basis. Justin and i decided to try and reproduce Lasse’s method using some of the apricots we picked.

the old fashioned stuff down

the finished product: two jars of apricot (one with lime added for ascorbic acid? i don't really know) and one jar of nectar (the liquid we boiled the apricots in).