Keep it under your hat
Jan. 30th, 2004 12:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaWell, if anyone was playing the shopping-basket game in the Co-Op tonight, they'd have been confused by me. I left with a big bottle of Jif lemon in one pocket, and two bags of sugar under my arm.
No, I wasn't planning a mammoth pancake session. I was making marmalade.
Y'see, JdB turned up to the rapper practice on Tuesday clutching a bag of seville oranges she'd picked up by mistake - I think she was after tangerines - trying to push them off onto a marmalade-maker. Well, no one else seemed willing...
And before any asks, yes, I know I don't like oranges, and I know I'm allergic to them. Marmalade is fine on both these counts.
Making marmalade is a process in several stages.
1. Go up into the attic to locate the preserving pan I rescued when we cleared out my Aunt's cellar last year. While up there, hunt around for the stash of empty jam jars - spend a while wondering why we seem to have an entirely disparate set of jars and lids. And, incidentally, if anyone has ever thought that roof insulation is a waste of time, five minutes in a loft in snowy January will soon convince you of the efficacy of the stuff.
2. Clean out said items. Jam jars went in the dishwasher. The preserving pan is lovely - old, made of solid brass (I think ? Something yellowy, but not orangey enough for copper. Are there any metallurgists listening ?), and gorgeously solid. It'd be at least a three-scene recovery if Jerry smacked Tom with it. However, having lived in a dank cellar it was not in the best of states. Two brillo pads down the line it was a lot more healthy.
3. Critical stage: phone the Cookery Advisory Service. The recipes I'd found at home looked different to the one I'm used to observing/helping with, so I wanted consoling advice. Fortunately it turns out that if you buy a one kilo bag of oranges, then one goes mouldy, you are left with exactly two pounds of oranges - the quantity the CAS's recipe states. So I didn't even have to do any sums.
4. Cook the oranges until they're dead. Our house now smells of one of the things I remember from being little - cooking sevilles. Despite the fact that peeling a normal orange smells foul (and I share an office with two inveterate orange-eaters), this is a proto-marmalade smell and it's lovely.
5. Slice all the oranges up - by this time they are incredibly squashy, and it's actually all quite fun.
6. Realise at a resonably critical (but not as critical as it could have been) stage that you have no waxed circles to put in the tops of the jars - and no waxed paper to make any either. I don't want mouldy marmalade a few weeks down the line. So, bung all the fuit/pulp/juice in the fridge to await stages 6 through, oooh, about 9 or 10 at a later date. Not ideal, but the CAS informs me it's a reasonable way of going on.
Things I have learned this evening: it's not spelled "marmelade".
Stage 4 is pretty time consuming, so during it I answered![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nalsa's questions, cooked dinner, ate it, faffed, sorted through my post, did a bunch of other things that really aren't that interesting... And did a bit more work. Reviewing technical documentation for the insides of a web browser while cooking marmalade. Let no one say I'm not varied in my passtimes :)
No, I wasn't planning a mammoth pancake session. I was making marmalade.
Y'see, JdB turned up to the rapper practice on Tuesday clutching a bag of seville oranges she'd picked up by mistake - I think she was after tangerines - trying to push them off onto a marmalade-maker. Well, no one else seemed willing...
And before any asks, yes, I know I don't like oranges, and I know I'm allergic to them. Marmalade is fine on both these counts.
Making marmalade is a process in several stages.
1. Go up into the attic to locate the preserving pan I rescued when we cleared out my Aunt's cellar last year. While up there, hunt around for the stash of empty jam jars - spend a while wondering why we seem to have an entirely disparate set of jars and lids. And, incidentally, if anyone has ever thought that roof insulation is a waste of time, five minutes in a loft in snowy January will soon convince you of the efficacy of the stuff.
2. Clean out said items. Jam jars went in the dishwasher. The preserving pan is lovely - old, made of solid brass (I think ? Something yellowy, but not orangey enough for copper. Are there any metallurgists listening ?), and gorgeously solid. It'd be at least a three-scene recovery if Jerry smacked Tom with it. However, having lived in a dank cellar it was not in the best of states. Two brillo pads down the line it was a lot more healthy.
3. Critical stage: phone the Cookery Advisory Service. The recipes I'd found at home looked different to the one I'm used to observing/helping with, so I wanted consoling advice. Fortunately it turns out that if you buy a one kilo bag of oranges, then one goes mouldy, you are left with exactly two pounds of oranges - the quantity the CAS's recipe states. So I didn't even have to do any sums.
4. Cook the oranges until they're dead. Our house now smells of one of the things I remember from being little - cooking sevilles. Despite the fact that peeling a normal orange smells foul (and I share an office with two inveterate orange-eaters), this is a proto-marmalade smell and it's lovely.
5. Slice all the oranges up - by this time they are incredibly squashy, and it's actually all quite fun.
6. Realise at a resonably critical (but not as critical as it could have been) stage that you have no waxed circles to put in the tops of the jars - and no waxed paper to make any either. I don't want mouldy marmalade a few weeks down the line. So, bung all the fuit/pulp/juice in the fridge to await stages 6 through, oooh, about 9 or 10 at a later date. Not ideal, but the CAS informs me it's a reasonable way of going on.
Things I have learned this evening: it's not spelled "marmelade".
Stage 4 is pretty time consuming, so during it I answered
nalsa's questions, cooked dinner, ate it, faffed, sorted through my post, did a bunch of other things that really aren't that interesting... And did a bit more work. Reviewing technical documentation for the insides of a web browser while cooking marmalade. Let no one say I'm not varied in my passtimes :)
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-30 02:46 am (UTC)Kids these days, no idea why these things are called preserves.
Re:
Date: 2004-01-30 02:48 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-01-30 02:57 am (UTC)I have no evidence for this obviously. I'm just sitting here waiting for my breakfast to be made for me ;-)
Re:
Date: 2004-01-30 03:45 am (UTC)Funny? In what way? Never had any trouble at Chez GreenMan and we never do the waxed lid business, just screw the lid on while hot.
Mind you we go through a put every couple of weeks so maybe it isn't around long enough to go "funny"
Re:
Date: 2004-01-30 03:55 am (UTC)I expect my jam to last years, unopened. Literally.
Re:
Date: 2004-01-30 10:17 am (UTC)I expect my jam to last years, unopened. Literally.
Clearly this is only because you've never lived with me. Food doesn't last that long in my vicinity, I assure you.