My son gave me a recipe. He scribbled it from memory on the back of a menu from the restaurant where he works. When my husband and I had lunch there, among the flavors, textures, beauty, finesse, and whimsy of the nearly 15 courses we ended up being served (thanks to the Chef de Cuisine who apparently recognizes parents of his young chefs as VIPs), one acoutrement that stood out was a gorgeous tomato marmalade nestled against a perfectly executed fillet of Atlantic halibut. I wanted a piece of this experience I could recreate at home, even though they do give you all sorts of things to take home to remember it by: a proper stiff folder with your menu (which changes every day), a box of house-made truffles, a cloth bag with gooey caramels, also house-made. Still I wanted the marmalade.

Now is the time to make this. Make your first batch, and it will be just that. A first of many. Start perhaps with those late tomatoes that are still coming in from your garden, the slightly damaged or soft ones that have fallen to the ground that may not be so pretty sliced up and drizzled with a little oil. Or maybe you are seeing some magnificent misshapen heirlooms at the farmers market that you can’t resist and you are wondering how you can capture that summer tomato madness for the dark days of winter. Not to mention that this marmalade makes a great Thanksgiving condiment, (a change-up from cranberry sauce, to say the least), and a festive red and Santa-sweet gift for the holidays. Anyone would be happy to have this on hand to break out and elevate a mundane cheese plate during their holiday entertaining, and it’s great with roasted meats, on sandwiches (even peanut butter) and on chinese food (instead of that mystery condiment, duck sauce.)

And this recipe could not be easier. In fact, I’ve written about how easy making most jams and preserves and marmalades are. It comes down to throwing a few things in a pan and boiling (reducing) the heck out of them. In this case you’ll first have to quickly dump the tomatoes in boiling water, which makes them a breeze to peel and de-seed. The X on the bottom makes it even easier. The peels just slide off. (Secret: This can even be made with drained, canned, chopped tomatoes. But at this time of year, it’s kind of ridiculous to do so.)

Then it’s just a matter of combining them with the rest of the ingredients. I substituted corn syrup, (albeit organic corn syrup…if that even makes a difference?), instead of the glucose indicated in my son’s scribblings. Glucose is something a pro kitchen would use—it’s not as readily available for the home cook, though you can certainly order a drum of it online for your pantry if you like—and corn syrup is comparable. In fact I would venture to say that you could use all sugar and no syrup at all and still get delicious results, but the syrup might give it a smoother consistency, with less of a tendency to crystalize, once cooled. Corn syrup is something I don’t use very often but I wanted to follow my son’s recipe rather slavishly so I broke down and used it here.

One caution. When something with this much vinegar is boiling down, (especially if you double or triple the recipe as I do), the air in the kitchen could get a little tough to handle. If you don’t have a strong kitchen fan that actually vents air to the outside, (mine is one of those useless noise-making ones above the stove that may as well be on an Easy Bake Oven for all the real air it actually moves), make sure you have a few windows open, with some decent cross ventilation going. My last double batch cleared out my house pretty quickly, with my daughter and husband holding their noses and insisting they had to take breakfast out.  I now cherish this recipe not only for it’s exquisite taste, but for it’s ability to get me a Sunday morning alone to putter around the house in my pajamas. Let them eat breakfast out. I like the smell of vinegar cooking—and who needs all those nose hairs anyway? When the air clears, you’ll have this glorious marmalade and it will have been worth it.

Tomato Marmalade

INGREDIENTS

800g(3.5 cups or 4-5 tomatoes) fresh tomatoes, peeled, cored and seeded, then coarsely chopped
150g (2/3 cups) shallots, minced
75g (1/3 cup) red onion, minced
300g (1 1/4 cups) red wine vinegar
100g  (¼ cup) granulated sugar
150g  (2/3 cup) glucose (or light corn syrup)
15g (1 tablespoon) fleur de sel (coarse sea salt)

PROCEDURE

1. To peel fresh tomatoes: fill a medium/large stockpot ¾ of the way up with water. Bring the water to a rolling boil. In the meantime, take each tomato and, using a serrated knife or a sharp paring knife, cut an X on the bottom of each. When water is boiling, drop tomatoes into the water. (you may have to work in batches…you don’t want to overcrowd the water and bring the temperature down. Do 5-6 plum tomatoes at a time, or less if you are using larger tomatoes.)  Allow them to remain in the water for about a minute, then remove them with a slotted spoon, tranfering them to a waiting dish/bowl. Allow them to cool for a few minutes. Using a paring knife, and your thumb, hold on to a corner of the peel at the bottom of the tomato where you made the X. It should lift up easily and allow you to peel away a large strip of the skin. Repeat until the skin is entirely removed. Some areas of peel may stick, but those can be easily cut loose.

2. Once the tomatoes are peeled, cut them in quarters, lengthwise, and remove seeds and yellowish core and discard. Coarsely chop the tomato and place it in a suitable pot that will fit all the ingredients (depending on how many times you multiply this recipe.) Add all the other ingredients. Combine well. Begin to cook over a medium-high flame, until it begins to bubble, stirring frequently to help dissolve the sugar and keep it from burning on the bottom of the pan. Once it’s bubbling, reduce to medium and continue to cook, allowing it to reduce until it is 3/4 of it’s original volume and all of the water content has evaporated. Remove from heat.

3. Proceed to canning, following standard low-pressure canning methods, if desired, or if you plan to give this away as gifts in the future. Or to store in the refrigerator, first marmalade down to room temperature, then seal in an airtight container. Should last for up to a month in the fridge, with minimum exposure to air and room temperature. So, if you are going to serve it, take a portion out to bring to the table, leaving the larger container in the fridge. Do not put back into the larger container the marmalade that has been out at room temp or has had exposure to utensils. Doing this could hasten the spoilage of the whole batch.

I tend to look backward a lot. In this very literal backward glance, it was a good thing. I captured my Vizsla, Phoebe in a glorious, wind-beneath-her-ears moment, her head held high, looking upward and outward toward the road that was leading her to the ectasy-inducing State Forest park, just a mile away from our house. But when I say I look backward a lot I don’t mean it this literally. I mean that I dwell often in the murky waters of the past: in what happened, what didn’t happen, what could have or should have or might have. It is not a good thing, trust me. Reflection can be educational, reminiscence can be sweet, but there is a big drop once you cross over the razor’s edge of nostalgia and free-fall into to the endless black hole of regret. Does it sound like I’ve had  a bad week? Well, let’s just say there have been some detours and bumps along the road to my proverbial State Forest.

Sometimes I feel like my life is like this picture of fennel. It’s not magazine perfect. The bulbs have been hanging around a day too long to be pretty. The light isn’t great. Just as I wanted to capture the sun streaming in, it hid behind clouds that threatened a coming storm. There are scuffs and scars. The dish towels are stained. Sigh.

Not to worry.  Next week is the ultimate antidote to our human frailties and failures: the Jewish New Year. This idea of a chance at a new beginning, a slate wiped clean, our names inscribed in the book of life’s bounty, is one we see echoed in every religion’s rituals, from confession to karma, celestial virgins to second comings. Like everything else Jewish, this chance for redemption, these days spent in prayer, comes with a big meal.

This dish, with it’s honey and orange juice glazed chicken, roasted over fennel and orange and thyme, conjures up all that I can hope for in the new year. I hope to taste the sweetness of success that follows my hard work, and the bright zest of health and vitality. I want to savor moments with my children, and my husband, made golden by the love and respect we have for each other. I want bitterness to melt away into a warm and comforting acceptance of processes that are beyond my control. I want to take the thyme, lots of thyme, to be grateful for the bounty I have been given. I want to feel full, with just a little room left over for desert, that sweetness to come.

You don’t have to be Jewish to take advantage of this opportunity for a new beginning and a great meal. Both are easy to pull together. The dish takes a few ingredients: some cut up chicken, fennel, thyme, an orange or two, a big roasting pan and some heat.

The new beginning? Stick your head out the window early in the morning. Feel the breeze on your face.  Get excited about what the road ahead may bring. Don’t, for a second, look back because you may miss what’s right here, right now. Wag your tail. Hit the ground running toward what and whom you love. Happy New Year.

Honey-Orange-Thyme Roasted Chicken with Fennel

INGREDIENTS

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, or as needed
2 bulbs fennel, trimmed and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices (slice off tops, remove outer dirty “leaves”, slice in half, remove hard, woody core, then cut into slices)
1 large navel orange, cut into eight pieces
1 large navel orange, zested
3 tablespoon freshly squeezed orange juice (use orange that you zested)
2-3 tablespoons honey
3-4 whole sprigs of thyme and 2 teaspoons thyme leaves
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 whole (about 3-pound) chicken, cut up, or about 3 pounds drumsticks, split breasts and thighs (or combo of parts you like best)

PROCEDURE

1. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Coat the bottom of a large roasting pan with half of the oil. Add the sliced fennel.  It may not all fit in one layer. It’s OK to overlap. Add the sprigs of thyme. Drizzle remaining oil over fennel and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss to fully coat the fennel with oil and seasonings. Roast 12 minutes. Meanwhile, cut up chicken, if you are starting with a whole one. Using paper towel, blot the chicken so it’s dry, especially the skin side . This will help the seasoning and basting mixture you’ll be using adhere better. Season the chicken well with salt and pepper on both sides.

2. Warm (about 12 seconds…don’t boil it!) the honey in the microwave or in a small saucepan so that it becomes thinner and easier to work with. Add the orange juice to the honey, along with the thyme leaves.

3. Remove the fennel from the oven. Reduce the oven temperature to 400. Top fennel with the chicken parts, skin side up. Spread the orange pieces throughout out the pan, in between the chicken, peel side up. Ideally, you’ll have a layer of fennel pretty much covered by a layer of chicken, but it’s fine if some of the fennel roasts uncovered. Spoon some of the oil from bottom of pan into they honey mixture and stir to combine. With a pastry brush, (or if you don’t have one, use a spoon) dab each piece of chicken with the honey/oil/juice mixture. If you have any of the mixture left after coating all the pieces, coat them all again!

4. Roast for 15 minutes, then baste chicken with pan drippings and rotate the pan. Roast for an additional 15-20 minutes, depending on the degree of doneness you prefer. If the skin has not crisped up fully after the total cooking time, you can switch to a HI broil setting for 3 minutes or so, but do keep watch over it, as it can burn quickly.

5. Remove pan from oven. To serve “family style” remove all the chicken pieces to a separate dish. Place fennel on a large platter. Replace chicken, skin side up on top of the fennel. Decorate with charred orange pieces. Pour any pan juices over the chicken. Sprinkle with orange zest.

6. For individual plating, serve each piece with some fennel and a little of the pan juices spooned over. Garnished with orange zest and roasted orange wedge.