Rambling in the Woods

Every spring I plant seeds because I cannot believe it will work. These are tomato seeds. I have taken them out of the dark envelope they have been stored in since they were collected last year and I will put them in dark soil. I will add water and they will grow. Everything they need to know to become tomatoes is in these tiny seeds. They will not become lettuce or eggplant or petunias, they will become tomatoes . No matter what direction the seed is pointing when I plant it, the roots will grow down and the stem will grow up. How do they know which way is up when they have been tossed around and then surrounded by earth? When I close my eyes and spin around, I don’t know which direction I am facing. I am humbled by a tomato seed.

I made another attempt at Orange Marmalade. The trick is to get someone else to open the cookbook to the correct page so you are not distracted by suggestions of how to prepare and serve a calf’s head. Mrs. Beeton has several orange marmalade recipes but I chose this one:

I chose this recipe because of the line: “Let there be an equal weight of loaf sugar and Seville oranges.” It sounds so biblical.

I like these wrinkly Seville oranges. They don’t look perfect and they are pretty bitter, much like an interesting character in a book or movie. Anyway, through the mysterious magic of chopping, sweetening and simmering they were transformed into:

Marmalade!! This batch is way better than the batch we made last year and infinitely better than commercially prepared marmalade. It takes about three hours to make and is well worth the trouble. Just the smell of the simmering oranges is enough to make it worth the trouble.