Orange Pineapple Marmalade

Break-up week. The streets full of slush. The dogs all muddy. Pete and I worked the night shift Friday. We talked between codes about the kids — his daughter's wedding planning, my sister's pregnancy. The talking was the keeping.

Lourdes is 76. She is slower. She still cooks. She still tells me to find a husband even though I have one. Joseph called from Kodiak Sunday. The fishing is good. The boats are running. He is fine.

I made sinigang Sunday. The sour was the right register for the body this week. The tamarind was sharp.

The blog post on sinigang got picked up by a Filipino-American newsletter. Traffic doubled for two days. The traffic was the surprise.

Angela came over Saturday with the kids. We cooked. We argued about pancit proportions — she uses more soy, I use more calamansi. We are both wrong, according to Lourdes.

I stood at the counter eating leftovers in my pajamas. The standing was the small luxury. The luxury was the having of leftovers at all.

A reader from New Jersey wrote in about her grandmother's adobo, which used pineapple. I had never heard of pineapple in adobo. I tried it. It was strange. It was also good. The strange and the good are not opposites.

I made tea late at night. The tea was the small comfort. The comfort was the marker.

The therapy session this month was about pacing. Dr. Reeves said, "Grace. The pacing is the love for the future self." I am working on the pacing. The pacing is harder than the loving.

I drove the Glenn Highway out to Eklutna on Saturday. The mountains were the mountains. The lake was the lake. The body needed the open road. The open road did its work.

A blog reader sent me a photograph of her grandmother's wooden mortar and pestle, used since 1962. The photograph was holy. I wrote her back. The writing back is the work.

The light was good Saturday morning. I sat on the porch with a cup of coffee and watched the inlet for forty minutes. The watching was the small therapy. The therapy was free.

I cleaned the kitchen Sunday afternoon. I wiped the stove. I scrubbed the sink. I reorganized the spice cabinet. The cleaning was the small reset. The reset was the marker. The marker said: the week is over, the next week begins, the kitchen is ready.

The break room had cake Tuesday. Someone's birthday. We ate the cake. We did not ask whose birthday. The cake was the cake.

Auntie Norma called Sunday to ask if I had a recipe for a particular merienda from Iloilo. I did not. I said I would ask Lourdes. I asked Lourdes. Lourdes had it. The chain.

Angela texted me a photo of the kids. I texted back a heart. The exchange took thirty seconds. The thirty seconds was the keeping.

I took a walk on the coastal trail Saturday. The light was good. The body was tired but moving.

I drove home Tuesday evening and the sun set at three forty-five and the highway was already iced at the bridges and the radio was on a station I did not recognize and I did not change it.

The neighbors invited us over for a small dinner Thursday. They are an Iñupiaq family — Aana and her grandson Joe. We ate caribou stew and rice. I brought lumpia. The kitchens of Anchorage have always been the small UN. The food is the proof.

I checked email at the kitchen table while the rice cooked. There were one hundred and twenty unread messages. I closed the laptop. The unread can wait.

The reader from New Jersey who wrote in about pineapple in adobo stayed with me all week — that reminder that ingredients we’d never think to combine can land exactly right. I had already been reaching for the sour and the bright all week, the tamarind in the sinigang doing its work on my body, and when I went looking for something to put up in jars on Sunday afternoon, this marmalade felt like the right answer: orange for the familiar, pineapple for the surprise, and the whole thing sharp enough to cut through a heavy week. It is also, like all preserves, an act of faith — that the next few weeks will come, that there will be toast, that the kitchen will be ready.

Prep Time: 30 min | Cook Time: 1 hr | Total Time: 1 hr 30 min | Servings: 48 (one tablespoon per serving, makes approximately 3 half-pint jars)

Ingredients

4 large navel oranges (about 2 lbs), scrubbed
1 can (20 oz) crushed pineapple in juice, undrained
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
3 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup water

Instructions

Prepare the oranges. Using a vegetable peeler, remove the zest from all four oranges in wide strips, avoiding the white pith. Stack the strips and slice into very thin matchsticks. Place the zest in a medium saucepan with the water, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes until tender. Drain and set aside.
Segment the fruit. Cut away all remaining peel and pith from the oranges. Working over a bowl to catch the juice, cut between the membranes to release the segments. Squeeze any juice from the membranes into the bowl, then discard the membranes. Roughly chop the segments.
Combine and cook. In a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the chopped orange segments and their juice, the drained cooked zest, the crushed pineapple with its juice, the lemon juice, and the salt. Stir in the sugar. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently to dissolve the sugar.
Boil to set. Once boiling, reduce heat to medium and cook at a steady, rolling boil for 35–45 minutes, stirring often and skimming any foam from the surface. To test for set, place a small plate in the freezer; after 35 minutes, drop a spoonful of marmalade on the cold plate. If it wrinkles when pushed with a finger, it is ready. The marmalade will thicken further as it cools.
Jar the marmalade. Ladle the hot marmalade into clean, sterilized half-pint jars, leaving 1/4 inch of headspace. Wipe the rims clean, seal with lids, and process in a boiling-water bath for 10 minutes for shelf stability, or allow to cool completely and refrigerate for up to three weeks without processing.
Rest and store. Let sealed jars rest undisturbed at room temperature for 24 hours before checking seals. Any jar that did not seal should be refrigerated and used within three weeks. Properly sealed jars will keep in a cool, dark place for up to one year.

Nutrition (per serving)

Orange Pineapple Marmalade — The Strange and the Good Are Not Opposites