Marmalade

With all this project work going on at the kid level it seemed only fitting that I have a project of my own.  My project actually started way back in New York when I found at the library and fell in love with Rachel Saunders' 'The Blue Chair Jam Cook Book'  It has beautiful photographs and recipes.  But those that interested me most were always marmalade recipes.  As you can imagine New York winters are rather short on local, fresh citrus, so I gave the book back to the library.  From time to time I'd find it at various libraries where we lived and drool over the recipes but then return it.

Fast forward to last week at our newly expanded farmers market, where they had added an entire block of vendors.  I was strolling along feeling rather overwhelmed by all the new choices when there in between rotisserie chickens and goat cheese was Rachel Saunders herself touting a myriad of exotic, jewel colored jams sparking in the morning sun.  I of course told her how much I adored her book and that I'd always wanted to make marmalade.  "Start with the lemon" she told me.  So I did.  I started with lemon.  I requested the book from the library and picked five pounds of lemons from a friends tree.  It took me four days (and four years) to make beautiful, delicious, heavenly lemon marmalade.  But hey some times it just takes four years for everything to fall into place.