Do you like to adventure outside of your culinary cooking comfort zone? Me too.
As the end of summer approaches, it is time to make jam with the abundance of the harvest, which will soon diminish.
Then, the moment arrived; my Fairy Fig Godmother, Karla J. Stockli, Chief Executive Officer, California Fig Advisory Board sent me a present, 4 boxes of California figs! They were ripe and perfect!
I contacted a friend, who had shown a previous interest in making jam with me. She had already purchased Mason jars, cooking pots and accessories necessary for canning and was ecstatic with the opportunity.
We read a few recipes and decided to add a little twist of our own into our fig jam. We were both a little anxious and giddy with excitement.
After a few hours of work, we were boiling 9 filled jars of fig jam. Our last job would be pulling out the jars and placing them on a towel to rest, that’s when we heard the jars ping one by one. Pinging is the result of success when jarring is done properly. Within 10 minutes we heard 9 pings…success, success, success – we did a 3 stooges dance, smiled and decided to reward ourselves…snacks and wine!
We opened a nice bottle of red wine and quartered some luscious figs, added a beautiful and stinky Gorgonzola, thinly sliced prosciutto and cantaloupe. An end to a beautiful day. Two friends, a bottle of wine and nature’s bounty in a quaint sunlit backyard in South Philly, what could be better. Go “Fig”ure!!!
