Music and Cats

It is still winter, but not for long. This is the brief period in our region when many winter vegetables (greens, squashes, potatoes) are declining, and the spring crops are not yet ready for harvest. Soon, though, soon…

When I arrived home that night, two years ago, the cats were at the back door waiting for me. They weren’t hungry - a friend had stopped by to feed them - but they had clearly missed having contact with their people throughout the day and evening.

Paul and I had left the house together before dawn that morning; I arrived home seventeen hours later without him. That night, Paul was in the ICU at the UW Medical Center, heavily sedated and on a respirator, following twelve hours of cancer surgery. I wrote a blog post for our friends and family before gathering the cats around me in bed and falling into a restless sleep.

When I arrived home tonight, Paul was just beginning the Vegetarian Epicure’s potato curry - a particular favorite of mine - for our dinner. Sasha and Lyra came into the kitchen to greet me, seeking the usual homecoming scratch and snuggle. I came upstairs to my computer, where I chatted with Jen and exchanged email with Janeen until dinner was ready. After dinner, we watched TV. Sergei crawled up into his preferred position, nestled in the curve of Paul’s right arm. I settled my head onto Paul’s left shoulder.

It was just a quiet evening at home. How lucky we are to have those.

Paul has also written a post about this anniversary. He writes that I have “become quite a writer, which may be one of the shiniest silver linings in what we�ve been through in the last two years.” The childhood taunt “takes one to know one” comes to mind, though the attached sentiment is quite different. Paul was already quite a writer when we met 25 years ago. I was a bit awed then by his way with words. I still am.
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This afternoon, Phil allowed as how he’d always dreamed of being a hand model. I’m all about helping a friend to find his right livelihood.

This place serves a nice cup of coffee. From their educational material, How to Choose a Barista, come such words of wisdom as:

“Are there big pitchers of pre-frothed milk with thermometers sticking out of them sitting on the counter for who-knows-how-long that they are going to use to make your drink? Ahhgh! Run away!”

Indeed.

During my brief frenzy of marmalading last February, I decided that this winter I would make pink grapefruit marmalade. Truth be told, I found myself wondering, as I stood over the second boiling pan of seville marmalade-to-be, why I wasn’t making grapefruit marmalade at that moment. I’d never tasted grapefruit marmalade, but I love pink grapefruit the best of all the citrus fruits (please don’t tell the clementines!), and I am a fan of marmalade, so it seemed an obvious choice. But by the time I had completed my first experiments with Seville oranges, I was done with preserving for a couple of months.

So here it is February again. I bought a few beautiful Texas ruby reds, and went looking for a recipe for grapefruit marmalade. There seem to be as many (and perhaps more) methods for making marmalade as there are authors of preserving cookbooks. My collection (of cookbooks, not authors) is admittedly not exhaustive, but in my limited library the number of marmalade-making methodologies far exceed the techniques for making jelly or jam. Some recipes call for cooking the citrus fruits whole, then chopping them; others say to slice the raw fruit, peels intact, and then cook. These methods result in thicker, chewier strips of candied peel in the marmalade. Another school involves removing the outer layer of peel with a vegetable peeler or zester, and cooking the chopped peel separately before adding the fruit, either chopped in a food processor (segment membranes included), or juiced (segment membranes discarded). (The peel is much less a presence is this sort of marmalade. Boil the marmalade with a bag of the citrus seeds (which up both pectin and bitterness quotients), or without. Add flavorings or not. You get the picture.

Most books on preserving give warning not to mess with a recipe’s proportions and preparation, lest one produce preserves with too hard a set or no set at all. Because I do not always follow those instructions, I have had both of the aforementioned results. The former I melt into sauces, glazes and marinades; the latter I call syrup or sauce. The recipe that follows is an amalgamation of the quantities and techniques from the grapefruit marmalade recipes in these two books. Despite my willful recipe-mixing, this marmalade did gel. Is the set too hard? Won’t know that until I open a jar, as there was just enough marmalade to fill three jars.

Pink Grapefruit Marmalade
makes 4 to 4 1/2 cups

3 large or 4 small pink grapefruit
2 lemons
3 cups water
3 1/2 cups sugar

Using a vegetable peeler, remove the colored part of the peel (not the white pith) from the grapefruits. Slice the strips of peel into a fine shred. Cut the grapefruits and lemons in half, and juice them.

(Perhaps you want a slightly thicker peel than a vegetable peeler would remove? Halve the grapefruits and juice them, then cut the grapefruit peels into quarters. Laying each section of peel membrane-side up, carefully - with a very sharp knife - slice the membranes and most of the pith from the peel. A bit time-consuming, yes, but you’ll be able to control the thickness of peel. Juice the lemons, and save their peels for later.)

Reserve the grapefruit and lemon seeds; place in a muslin bag.

(Where do you keep your muslin bags? I keep mine in the drawer with the measuring cups and spoons. Oh, look, here are the plastic and label from the package of small muslin bags I bought last summer… but there are no muslin bags in the drawer. How did this happen? Ahem. Place the seeds in your mesh tea infuser ball.)

Place the grapefruit peel and water in a preserving pan; bring to a full boil. Reduce heat to bring mixture down to a gentle boil. Cover pan, and boil for 20 minutes.

(You have time now to do something else. It could be something useful, like prepping the canning jars, rings and lids. Or you could read some blog posts.)

Add the grapefruit and lemon juices, lemon peels and muslin bag tea infuser of reserved seeds to the pan. Bring mixture to a full boil, then reduce heat and cover. Boil gently for 10 minutes.

(You’ll want to be around to stir once or twice during this 10 minutes. If you are lucky enough to have a laptop in the kitchen, this should not interfere with blogging.)

Remove lemon peels and tea infuser from pan. Add sugar, stir until dissolved. Bring to full boil, and boil hard, uncovered, until marmalade will gel, about 30 minutes.

(Stir frequently, especially as the marmalade thickens, lest it stick and burn. Pay attention when stirring, as bubbles and splatters will be hard on the skin. Blogging and boiling sugar do not mix well.)

Let marmalade sit for 5-10 minutes, then stir to distribute peel evenly. Ladle into jars, top with caps and rings, and process in a boiling water bath.

(After removing the jars from processing, I hang out in the kitchen until I hear the ploink… ploink ploink-ing of the lids as vacuum forms, just because the sound pleases me so very much. If you’re not around to hear that sound, check that the lids have sealed before storing the jars. Your cat may be interested in helping you to check the marmalade, but his lack of opposable thumbs will hinder his ability to check for seal.)

By this point, you may be thinking but how does it taste? In the words of my friend Janeen (yes that Janeen), who has already opened the jar I gave her today: It’s heavenly!

Marmalade was made. Ruby red grapefruit marmalade, which is less pink than I’d thought it would be. Details to follow.