Living in an Urban environment, it can sometimes feel easy to get disconnected with the seasons, surrounded by artificial lights and asphalt.

All over the bay area there are those plum trees with those cute tiny plums on them. While delicious, it can be a little mysterious to figure out what to do with them all.

Over the years I have been cultivating a relationship with the plum tree in my back yard. My landlady used to come and essentially give it a crew cut every spring, sometimes with blossoms on it, much to my horror, causing the tree to shoot skyward, or reduce its delicious fruit to sometimes zero. No blossoms, no fruit.

Over the years, I have taken on pruning the tree so that they are easy to harvest, and over time, more and more branches allow easy picking of the cherry sized plumes that fall to the earth in huge amounts. Some years I have collected 20 gallons of fruit off of that tree. It is so much fun to pick plums with a friend.

I began to notice last year that my final pick of the plums occur on Solstice. This tree lets me know naturally when the day is at its longest and the nights are shortest. All the energy of the tree goes into those plums. Solstice. The longest days when we are fully into summertime.

What else about solstice?? When we harvest food it automatically puts us in touch with the cycles of the earth. It is one of the beautiful things about being a chef, it puts one into the rhythms of the earth. When we begin to cook that way, and pull things from the

Solstice is a great time to make jam. There is something ecstatic about picking fruit. In fact, I think we get a wave of good feelings when we pick fruit. I certainly do. That feeling when I am up a latter in a tree, and there are literally hundreds of plums all around me, and its all I can do to try and get them all. I love them at all phases from green to dark red.
At green, they taste like a green apple, tart and refreshing. At dark red they are sweet and lovely.

These teeny plums are a little tricky to work with as it is too much to try and pit each individual plum. I have tried many ways, but I have come up with a great method to de pit them.

Basically, I rinse and put all the plums into to a thick bottomed pot and put the heat on low. I’ll come check after 15 minutes to give a stir and then let them simmer for about an hour.
I then squish every plum with a wooden spoon

Pour all the plums and juice through a colander and let strain for 5 -15 minutes.
Next I pour the pits and skins onto a sheet pan.
I separate the pits from the skin. Compost the pits and put the skin back into the mixture. You can use this stuff right away, or put in the freezer to make for another day. You can also pick the fruits and process the food on another day as well if you like.

I find I like to just do part one one of food processing at a time. Ie. Cook down the plums and de-pit them, but make the jams another day.

You then have a wonderful best color unsweetened plum pulpy compote that you can either:
Eat Plain…sooo sooo good
Eat with Yogurt on pancakes
Add sweetner like honey or maple
Freeze for later
Use as a base for Jam, plum butter, barbecue sauce, or Asian plum sauce.