It's winter at your English country estate. A fussy old lady is solving the murder of your wealthy father. You're checking your stocks in the Times, while you munch on a piece of toast. Quick! What's on your toast?

Butter?

Sure.

Marmalade?

You bet.

You are Master and Commander of Her Majesty's Ship "Indefatigable". The wind roars outside your cabin windows. You flick a weevil off a ship's biscuit, and spread what across its dry surface? Marmalade? Ahoy!

The point is, if you're English, marmalade seems to be a part of your story, if not...it's just sort of a quirky jelly that most people don't like. Why? We don't know. Camri doesn't like it, she says it tastes like children's Tylenol, I love it, in the winter time it tastes like yummy sunshine. I decided I wanted to make my own. I checked into the history of the stuff on Wikipedia, then I found a couple of recipes online. All of them used seville oranges, which are hard to get in the US. You can order big cans of them, which would yield several pounds of marmalade. I don't need several pounds.

I considered making a bunch and giving away jars, but it turns out, I don't really know anyone that likes marmalade. Then I thought, "hey, maybe I should make it with regular oranges!" It turns out, seville oranges have more pectin in them, meaning that I'd have to add pectin to a regular orange marmalade, and get into funky canning. Plus, if there's any chance that the oranges you use were treated with pesticides, you'll end up having really yucky jam. You need to find organic oranges.

What is this all building up to? I totally failed. I didn't make my own marmalade. This is a story about giving up. Sorry folks. I stone cold gave up. I bought a jar of marmalade at the grocery store and called it a day.

Despite my failure, I can still live out my marmalade fantasies at breakfast. If you haven't tried it, I suggest you do. If I can get a couple more people into orange-y jelly, I can justify ordering a big can of seville oranges and make a few pounds of marmalade.