PERHAPS YOU NEED MARMALADE?

For some reason I woke up thinking about lime marmalade. Several years ago I experimented with making it myself, eventually ending up with a two-day process of blanching and soaking the thinly sliced peel, and extracting whatever pectin was in the pith and flesh after reserving the juice.
I used more lime juice than the amount of limes zested would have yielded (squooze extra limes), and an amount of sugar equal to the amount of liquid after simmering pith, pulp, and juice, for two hours.
The two-day process makes the zest less bitter; unfortunately it will reduce the fragrance slightly also. The result was not so much a jam or jelly as it was a syrup-based compote.

Excellent, but not as easy as simply heading around the corner to the English store to stock-up on a nice British marmalade.
Coopers Thick Cut Oxford.
Among others.

Marmalade is a comfort food, amigo.
It's very lonely out in the desert.
If you don't have marmalade.

I'll also need to restock the cocoa. I cannot understand how, but we've run out entirely. We had five tins sitting on the top of the shared refrigerator at the beginning of the year, including the extra dark and something with a mysterious fragrance. No, to the best of my knowledge my apartment mate has NOT been organizing home-made chocolate syrup and nudity orgies with her boy-friend. Unless she's changed more over time than I realize.
Or understand.

Maybe Wheelie Boy has an obsession.

One of the problems with orgies that involve coating the other person with an edible substance is that the stuff gets into the strangest places. Another issue is that it interferes with your tactile senses and diminishes traction.

Moderation in all things, amigo.

Think it out first.


I have never grasped the full-body romantic treatment with cocoa and other sweet substances. It sounds like it would immensely detract, as well as distract, from the zesty naughtiness at hand. As well as leave an incredible mess, what with sticky torn tarpaulins and smears of crusty goo damned well everywhere. Plus it would attract ants.

Waking up the next day would be a bitch.

There you are, sleeping off your sugar jag, virtually glued to the other person, who is equally miserable -- nausea, stomach cramps, headache, physical aches and pains, stiff joints, and possibly bruises or contusions from the slip'n slide episode -- when you become aware of ants in your hair. Not just your head hair, which inexplicably got sodden with the Hershey's bitter, but also elsewhere. Yes, it tickles. Not what you are presently in the mood for, considering your traumatized state. Itchy itchy. Ants bite when irritated. You are naked and sticky.
And covered with ants.
That's problematic.

The tarp will have to be trashed. It looks a right mess.
Your love-interest also looks trashed.
What were you thinking?

Sticky nipples.

No, I have never experienced this first-hand. But I know people.


My idea of a lively good time with a person of the opposite gender and cocoa is fully clothed. Possibly involving pillows and a throw-rug.
Plus books, stuffed animals, and whipped cream.
No one wakes up with a sugar hangover.
Except, perhaps, the animals.
No self-restraint.

It also involves hot buttered toast.
And antique porcelain plates.
Hence the marmalade.

One positively cannot have an exciting love-life without marmalade.
Or any life at all, whether romantic or not. It's quite unheard of.

But that's just my idea. I am open to suggestions.

Maybe apricot preserves?

Tell me.



If I ever get involved in a chocolate syrup episode, it will have to be in a hotel room. Pay cash, register under a fake name, and leave before they discover that we wrecked the suite.

Or a one-person event the next time I get dragooned into house-sitting.
Just me by myself with Hershey's and a bad attitude.
Plus dangerous "creativity".


The gift of a home-made marmalade says you care. It really is a sweet idea, and touching. Cocoa is useful and important, however it has no emotional baggage whatsoever. It is neutral.
Furthermore, it may be provided irrespective of relationship.
All households need a goodly supply of cocoa.
But one must also have marmalade.
Share it discretionarily.
If at all.


Unripe citrus fruit is best.



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