The Day That The Apricots Came....

The Day That They Apricots Came.....

Over the last few years, I have bought the entire crop (or close to it) of organic apricots from my pals Cheryl & Blaire up in the Similkameen Valley. The primary focus of their farm is to produce honey and the apricots are not the focus but rather a by-product.

Bees like apricots and Blaire has dotted a line of trees from the main valley road to the bee hives. In reality, harvesting the apricots are amost an afterthought.







Last week cases of freshly picked organic apricots began arriving at the Greyhound depot.

I converted my Smart car into a Apricot Transporter, and over the next couple of days collected a total of 37 cases. At 20lb a case we had a whopping 740lbs.....seemed like a good idea at the time.

The logistics of storing, pitting, boiling and putting into individual jars is mind boggling.
We hosted a "Pit for your Supper" event, that saw 10 people spend 2 and a half hours last Monday night, pitting apricots. For their trouble they were hydrated with endless pints of beer and ate their weight in apricots.







We kept the pits so that our Chef can make an apricot gastric, and this will form the base of the chutney.

















O yeah, I guess I should have said what we intended to do with the apricots....I sold 6 cases to Chef Rob Belcham of Fuel and Campagnolo, our pastry chef Pekka took several lbs to make desserts for the Heather and Salt Tasting Room and we made Apricot Chutney.







Here is our 80 litre tilt skillet.....we filled it 3 times, each time for 3 hours.






We'll be selling jars of this Apricot Chutney at the Farmer's Market located right outside our front door this Sunday from 11am-3pm.

Otherwise it will appear as a condiment on Salt's blackboard menu or as a foil on one of the Heather's cheese plates.