A veritable avalanche of ripe citrus fruit littering the kitchen counters, filling baskets and bowls, appearing in recipes and cups of tea of late, resulted in this sampling, which represents the tip of the marmalade iceberbg: from left to right, Blood Orange, Bearss lime, and Meyer lemon.
The blood oranges were contributed by a friend, but the lemons and limes are from our own trees. I kept the sugar low, resisted my usual temptation to get fancy with spices and liqueurs, and added commercial pectin only to the lime marmalade when I saw that the seedless oranges formed a very soft set due to the absence of natural pectin. I supremed all the fruit (although to her credit, the blood orange-donating friend did half of both lemons and oranges) so there are no chewy bits of pith or rind to mar the texture. This is Purist Marmalade. And the resulting flavors are pure bursts of citrus goodness. Oh my.
There has also been knitting going on here. To wit, these Autumn Leaf wristlets. Pattern, my own adaptation of the many mitt patterns out there. I love the Rowan Yorkshire Tweed DK yarn in the Lime Leaf colorway. This yarn has since been discontinued by Rowan, which came out with Scottish Tweed DK as a substitute in fresh colors. Am I the only knitter on the planet to desire this color? I recently went online to try and find more of it in additional colors – it was such a pleasure to knit with on my size 6 bamboos. Alas, the only color out there, on site after site, is the Lime Leaf. What is it that others don’t care for? The lovely little flecks of sunflower and sky that permeate the fiber? The slightly tacky texture that makes it grip the needles so nicely? I just don’t get it. Anyway, your loss is my gain… this perplexing lack of interest just means there is more for me.
I am still hard at work on the Lizard Ridge blanket for my daughter. Coming into the home stretch, even. No more photos until it’s on the blocking board.
Comments welcome