I went temporarily insane at the market this morning. The only reason I even went, really, was just to get a few of this really astonishing variety of nectarine that’s ripe now and to have coffee with Sybil.
See, I’m going to an all afternoon party tomorrow after spending all morning watching what I expect to be Andy’s gallant but ultimately futile struggle against that Swiss android tennis machine in the Wimbledon finals. And then on Tuesday I’m doing a little tour-guide-dining-companion thing for some visiting Germans who I’ll be giving a ride up to Saratoga Springs on Thursday morning since they are also going to my summer camp.
Oh, and I have a refrigerator full of stuff that needs to be eaten in order of imminent spoilage.
So what did I do?
Well, I went straight for the nectarines and somehow lost track as I kept shoveling more and more into my bag, and then as I was headed down to where I was meeting Sybil I couldn’t help stopping to say hello to one of my fave vendors, and he proudly pointed out his first greengage plums. They’re the best plum in the universe, many people think, but they’re not grown much because they’re notoriously capricious producers.
So I had no choice but to get a bagful since I’ll miss next week and will have only one other possible day to get them this year. And then the Luceros spotted me and raved about how much they loved my apricot-jalapeño chutney, so common decency forced me to buy a three-pack of their strawberries and a handful of green zebras.
And I’d foolishly planned to meet Sybil at McGinnis, so to make it look natural I had to get a couple of quarts of their strawberries even though I had prudently hidden inside a cloth bag the ones from Lucero.
So I stopped at Safeway on the way home and picked up four cartons of jars, and I’ve just finished the second batch of strawberry jam and packing three jars of sugar snaps to pickle. Now I’m taking a little break before brewing the pickling solution and processing the snaps.
Next I’ll make jam out of the greengages since I made chutney out of them last year and want to try jam.
The apricots I’ll turn into another batch of apricot-jalapeño chutney since that one’s getting good reviews, and the nectarines I’ll mix with some old sour cherries for a jam, but all of that may have to wait until tomorrow.
Oh, and speaking of Andy, a note from Bruce Jenkins in this morning’s San Francisco Chronicle: “Andy Roddick, when told that Maria Sharapova and Andrew Murray got marriage proposals from complete strangers during the tournament: ‘I don’t know if my fans think that long term.'”
Ummm, yes. Reminds me of Dan Savage’s response to the query as to how he’d want to spend the time if he learned that he had only 24 hours to live: “Locked in the trunk of a very small car with Andy Roddick.”
Today, how ’bout a pic of my Sansevieria trifasciata perfuming the room:
