Seville oranges, halfway to being marmalade

Bitter. Oh, so bitter. Yet intensely fragrant. A fruit of perfect balance.

That’s the calling card of the Seville orange (Citrus aurantium), also known as the sour orange or bigarade. Its fleeting season, a scant few weeks in the dead of winter, makes this fruit’s appearance at markets a much-anticipated event.

With thick, pockmarked, and highly fragrant ...
Continue reading ...

English lavender in my Aunt Janice’s garden

There’s a magical moment that happens when making lavender limeade. It occurs after you have simmered together water, sugar, lavender blossoms, and lime zest to produce a floral-perfumed simple syrup. It happens after you have sliced a little hill of limes in half and divested them of their pulpy, tangy juice. It happens after ...
Continue reading ...