I’m getting a kick out of all the comments regarding the appearance of my baby’s toes alongside some nectarines in my ‘reenie post. I loved that picture—his big little-boy feet, his fumbly hands awkwardly attempting to manage the slippery slices, his squatting on the kitchen table, something I hardly ever let him do. That people would be revolted by my sweet baby’s stinky toes never crossed my mind. That it crossed theirs made me chuckle.

It reminded me of a post by David Lebovitz in which he photographed an elderly French woman make mayonnaise. Her hands were wrinkled and sun-spotted, the honest hands of a hard-working country woman. His photography was, as usual, superb. But some people were horrified by her hands (though those comments no longer remain on the blog). There was some black stuff—soil? chocolate?—under her nails! In deference to his sensitive readership, he removed the picture from the blog. I never even noticed her nails until I read the comments, and I was sorry to see the picture go.

I have a pretty high tolerance for dirt. This probably comes from our three years in Nicaragua where we lived in a multitude of homes before building our own—a house of dirt. (Am I sensing a theme?) While there, we witnessed/experienced the following:

*mice scurrying in and over food-laden pots
*delicious homemade cheese made from rennet that was made by soaking in a bit of dried calf’s intestine in some leftover whey
*fly-covered food
*chicken butchering in the middle of the kitchen
*babies without diapers that then peed on everyone and everything (of course)
*babies crawling on dirt floor and gnawing on leftover chicken bones that had been tossed down
*pigs in the house
*minimal, or no, refrigeration
*dirty milk
*a mother mouse (er, RAT) scrabbling through my hair in the dead of the night (eek!)
*street food
*fly-infested kitchens (you’ve never seen anything like it—don’t even try to tell me you have)
*dirty water

And while I’m on a roll, I might as well mention no car seats, no seat belts, scorpions, latrines, poopy potties, machete-wielding children, exposed wiring in showers, crazy bus drivers…

I learned that you can eat food off of some pretty dirty surfaces and not get sick. (And if you did get sick, which we did—well, it wasn’t the end of the world. Bodies heal. Not that I’m a fan of giardia…) I’m not condoning these things, or, worse yet, idolizing poverty, but it was made clear to me that dirt isn’t evil incarnate.

As you can probably imagine, my child’s feet on my kitchen table is quite mild by comparison.

And! Just for the record! I sweep the floor before we eat off of it, the dog does a great job of licking clean the plates, and I even boil the toothbrushes after using them to scour the toilet. Want to come over for supper?

It’s nectarine season. Each year I’m blown away by how much I love the fruit. So sweet! So juicy! So perfect! (There I go again with my wild adjectives.)

We dry most of the nectarines ‘cause I prefer dried ‘reenies to canned or frozen ‘reenies which tend to get mushier than I like, though they are still plenty good. So I leave the peaches for the jars and the nectarines for the dehydrator and it all works out in the end.

This is what happens when you drink a glass of white wine while filling the dehydrator trays: a few chunks of fruit somehow end up splashing into the glass—shplink, shplank, shploosh. The glass drained, you’re left with the bits of wine-infused fruit. Mmm.

One of Sweetsie’s morning jobs was to unload the trays.

Nickel helped me reload the trays this morning. While doing so, he kept up a non-stop, happy chatter. It got so bad that I finally sat down at my desk to take notes. I could hardly keep up with the barrage of words that poured from his mouth:

Good grief, Mom. I have to do all this stuff. I’m grumpy. Uhh… Whoa, my WORD. I’m almost to the end—whoa! I’m doing all this STUFF… The ones that fall on the table I can eat… Mom. I maked crossed over crossers. I’m doing crossed. Mom, look what I’m doing. Look what I’m doing else, Mom. Mom. MOM!

Yesterday I made a nectarine tart. It’s not at all pretty to look at, kind of drippy and crumbly, maybe even a little gross. But the taste—oh, my starry firmaments, the taste!—belongs in Seventh Heaven. The firm fruit softens and melts and the rich butter crust gets a heavy glazing from the tart-sweet syrup, turning it tacky like toffee. My crust must’ve had holes everywhere because the syrup oozed all over the bottom of the pan, glazing the top and bottom of the crust. It made it a bugger to serve, but it was so wow-good that I forgave it its shortcomings and began to scheme ways to get a two-sided glazed crust every time.

Breakfast was oatmeal with brown sugar, chopped nectarines, and nectarine-blueberry-white chocolate muffins. I have plans to make a couple varieties of nectarine cobblers/grunts/crisps/buckles, and I also made this jam.

Mr. Handsome took one taste and then burst forth with “Wow. That is GOOD.” His pleasure was so devoid of pretense it was almost embarrassing! My shock quickly changed to intense love and adoration. “Aw honey, you said the right thing!” I cooed, seizing the opportunity to increase the spirit of jammy good will and happiness.

It’s just a couple nectarines blended up real good with a couple cups of red raspberries and then sweetened and thickened in the manner of most freezer jams. It reminds me of sour-sweet gummy candy but without any of the artificial chemical-ness. Gummy candy is my weakness; therefore, this jam is now my weakness.

I’m giving you the recipe with the same proportions as the original even though my batch didn’t set up all the way. There could be a couple reasons for this minor hitch. It could be because my nectarines are humongo-large (though I don’t quite think they are). Or it could be because I didn’t strain out the seeds (I like seedy jam; is that weird?) choosing instead to give the fruits a prolonged, mighty blitz in the food processor.

And really, when it comes down to it, a slightly runny jam isn’t the end of the world. I just think of it as a fruity honey.

But even so, I’ll be tweaking the recipe, attempting to shape it up into perfect jelly-like submission. When I do, I’ll report back. Until then, here you go:

Nectarine-Red Raspberry Freezer Jam
Adapted from Cheri at Simple Bites

Updated on August 12, 2010: Reporting back from the fruity front lines… I made it again, using two cups of chopped nectarine (which equaled two nectarines). The jam set up almost immediately and was quite thick. As a result, I think 2 ½ cups of chopped nectarines would be about perfect.

2 or 3 nectarines, washed, pitted, and roughly chopped (about 2 ½ cups)
2 cups red raspberries
4 cups sugar
½ cup sure-jell (or 1 3/4-ounce box powdered fruit pectin)
3/4 cup water

Whiz the fruits for a full minute in the food processor.

Measure the sugar into a bowl and stir in the fruit puree. Let it sit for 10 minutes, stirring periodically.

Combine the sure-jell and water in a saucepan and bring it to a boil over high heat, whisking steadily. Hold it at a full boil for one minute, still whisking non-stop.

Dump the sure-jell water into the fruit and stir for three minutes. Pour the jam into jars, lid, and label. Let them sit at room temperature for 24 hours before transferring to the freezer.

Yield: 5-6 cups of jam

This same time, years previous: peach canning, granola bars