Rewind!

We went to the Space Needle yesterday.  That's right, after living here for for nearly nine years, I've finally gone to the Space Needle.  We took the monorail and everything.  It went like this: we met Michael's Aunt Marie and his cousin Janet, who happen to be in town from Brooklyn and Idaho, respectively, downtown for lunch.  We all had fish tacos/fish and chips and such, and Aunt Marie asked if we wanted to go to the Space Needle with them.  Michael, sadly, declined because he had to get back to work, but Emilia and I both yelled, 'Yes, please!'  It was a New Year's resolution this year, after all -- not to mention the fact that Emilia periodically begs to go, 'Maybe we should go to the Space Needle sometime, Mama!'  But what really sold me was that it was a sunny sunny sunshiny day (albeit fricking freezing).  And so we went.  And now I can cross it off of our list of things to do.

Anyway, I appear to have teetered toward that dangerous realm of not blogging at all anymore ever again so long as I live, and what can I say for myself?  Not much.  We've been so busy doing this and that and some more of this, that it makes it quite difficult to sit still sometimes.  (Yet when I do sit still, I can't manage to actually BE STILL ALREADY!  I've been driving myself bat-shit crazy, which is never very pleasant, for the record.)  I've had so many great ideas for posts, and I've let them all slip away, including some rather fantastic dinners, books, sundry fascinating tidbits, and who knows what else.  But before I let this month go for good, I will give you a brief list of how we (I) have been keeping ourselves (myself) busy.  Hmmm, where shall we start?

Gorgeous and Glorious Marmalade

Now then, where was I?  Oh, yes, that's right, marmalade -- gorgeous and glorious marmalade.

It would seem that part of my morning ritual has become, as I sit clicking away at the major news sites on-line and waiting for the little-one to wake up, The Telegraph newspaper.  They do afterall have quite a bit of world news, and (my most favorite) a lovely 'Property' section, showing, from time to time, gorgeous photos of brick farmhouse manors (of which I will never know the like) throughout the Cotwalds and other such places.  And their food section is supposed to be quite fantastic.  (Doesn't Yotam Ottolenghi do a column for them?  Or maybe it is Nigella.  I might have my wires crossed).

And so, last week as I sat one morning sipping my enormous cup of tea, I saw an article about marmalade.  It was all about the tradition of marmalade in England -- or, more appropriately, what they dubbed as a dying tradition.  It would seem that the younger generations have zero taste and prefer chocolate spreads (such as Nutella and the like) on their toast in the morning, instead of the gorgeous and glorious marmalade of the erstwhile past.  Apparently it is only old grannies (and grandpas) who eat the golden-hued sticky stuff*.

Naturally, after this article came out, all the grannies in the country wrote angry missives to the paper demanding to be counted -- lest they forget those who laboriously make their own, refusing to buy the loathsome (apparently) stuff at the grocery store.  And they were really put-out by the whole thing.  One grannie, in particular, has been using the same recipe that she got from The Telegraph in the 1950s, year in year out ever since. 

Quite impressive, wouldn't you say?