Setting.

I've waited for jam to set, marmalade to gel, and liquor to infuse... waiting and preparing and the joyful anticipation of what will happen; this seems like such a theme in my life right now. Right now, it's runny jelly, but I think all the ingredients are there and things will come together and set up beautifully after proper care. Oh, and not touching, poking, shaking, tilting, or otherwise disturbing it.

In other news, nettles + endive + cheese = yummy!

Marmalade days

Today my trusty chopping assistant and I tackled this recipe:

http://www.foodinjars.com/2009/04/09/honey-lemon-marmalade/

It didn't even take an hour to chop, thanks to helping hands AND new knives. I have never made this kind of jam or jelly before, only freezer jams, and I don't totally know how the water bath process should look. Of course I went to 3 different stores looking for a canner with a jar rack to no avail but at least I got the new knives. I reprocessed some of the jars because I got paranoid about the jar lids moving, though now that they are cooling the lids seem to be depressed and not popping/moving, so I suppose that's a good sign. It's super dark from the buckwheat honey (Eugene, Oregon!) speckled with bright cheery yellow lemon chunks (Mission SF!) and only a little translucent.

Okay, RR is on TV making a comfort-food dinner. I'm intrigued, except I know I won't be eating any of it.

I've been reading so much Michael Pollan, watched Food, Inc. last night, and right now for me food is kind of ruined. I don't eat lots of processed food, or so I thought, but now even my purchased granola bars and packaged health-nut brown flakes-and-nuts cereals and cartons of almond milk are all seeming suspect as I read the labels. I was starving today and stopped to get coffee, and was looking at all the snacks and to-go lunches and trying to find some real food in the food, something that wasn't government-subsidized to keep farmers depressed, or manufactured to use up excess cheap corn products, or full of sugars. And so, I ate nothing until I got home and shoveled down blueberries and my (organic, humane-association-approved, locally-produced) cottage cheese but then, oh no, there are additives in it... ergh.

What's a girl to eat? And what the heck am I going to spread this marmalade on?