Peach jam

Summer in Colorado means Palisade peaches. Every time I go to the farmer's market, there's a new round of lush globes piled up and waiting. I love the names: Cresthaven, Elberta, Coralstar, Redhaven. There's even one called Fat Lady (the last harvest of the season). Last week I bought a big box of Cresthavens and hauled out all the jamming equipment. Our kitchen smelled incredible, there was sticky juice everywhere, and just before the fruit flies launched a full-scale invasion, I turned twenty pounds of peaches into 32 jars of jam. It is so incredibly satisfying to go from this...



To this...

And finally this...

One twenty-pound box of peaches = two batches of peach jam and one batch of peach-lemon marmalade. Not to mention a very sticky kitchen. Oh, how I love admiring all my jars crammed with bright sunshiny sweetness, shored up for a drab winter day.