Plum Crazy

Plum tart

(still had 31.5 pounds of plums to use at this point!)

After picking 32 pounds of plums off of our plum tree last week, I had my work cut out for me. Making confiture (fruit preserves) is one of the arts of the French woman, so I determined to try my hand at it. After discussing this art with one of the French teachers at my summer class, I set out to buy all of the recommended equipment: a real copper pot for making preserves, a wooden spoon, a scale for measuring the fruit, jars for storing, sugar, lemons (for the zest), and vanilla. After gathering all of my supplies, I had to still wash all 32 pounds of plums and cut out the pits. After washing and cutting the plums for several hours with my friend Tracy, we decided that we needed the little machine for deseeding the plums. This made the work go a little faster, but it still took hours to make the couple of dozen pots of confiture, and I ended up freezing a few pounds because I just couldn't bear to make or eat anything else with plums! You probably won't believe this, but we found 2 peach trees in our "jardin" last week, so now, I have a few pounds of peaches to use! Lately my little garden paradise is creating alot of work!