It’s only a brief window in Late August when the Italian Plums are available.
I don’t know what anyone else uses them for, but my grandma made them for plum dumplings, which was a favorite treat of childhood.
So, a couple of weekends ago, I consulted my grandma’s hand-written recipe, (Later in life, she cultivated an easier recipe for the dumpling dough from a friend of hers that was easier to make than the potato based dumpling dough she used most of her life. I use the easy dough recipe, too.) turn on some polka music, kneaded dough, sliced open plums and wrapped dumplings.
They probably don’t look like much in this photo, but they’re doughy and sweet, and swimming in a broth of cinnamon, butter, and nostalgia.
I love how the plums dye the dumpling interior a lovely shade of purple pink that, for me, can only exist here.