learning lessons

Back in February friends of mine who have property in a place called Borego Springs, and who have grapefruit trees on this property, gave me some fruit. It was too much to eat by myself, so I tackled turning the remainder into marmalade. It turned out pretty great!

So, as a thankyou, I gave my friends a jar of marmalade. It was gone in a week, so I gave them a 2nd.

Then, when they returned from Borego Springs a couple of weeks ago with a "present" for me, I realised what a mistake I had made!!! So, with 5kg of grapefruits in my kitchen and no assistance (Kiki actually counts as minus-one assistant) - I learned some lessons:

• always sharpen knives BEFORE your hands are covered in sticky citrusy pulp
• even if your hands are covered in goo, it is better to stop and sharpen the knife than to carry on hacking away and getting blisters on your fingers
• rubber gloves are NOT heat proof, and even if you are wearing them, it does not make your hands invincible against boiling water to pull marmalade filled jars out out of the sealing pot
• don't bother cleaning your kitchen before making marmalade
• the pot is never big enough
• trying to share marmalade from one boiling sticky seething mass into a 2nd pot to prevent disaster is messy, dangerous, and not recommended for one
• when buying sugar in the USA, always read the fine print to find the weight in kilos - or get some grasp of what 10lbs feels like, and that it's HALF of 9kg
  
• 5kg of grapefruits makes 24 pints of marmalade - anyone want to buy some?