This is a long, six-minute video of Vivi, babbling and doing Vivi things. I taught her to say "please" last week. It sounds adorable, like "pleesh".

In this video, I love the sound of her teeny, tiny, Vivi-paws, scrabbling on my metal speaker grills.

A couple days after this video, Vivi spontaneously asked for "up, pleesh", when I gave her a "horse-back ride". She went bonkers and laughed her tiny ass off.

​We will get some more Vivi babbling, but you can hear her ask pleesh right near the end.

Enjoy!
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Today we bought the extra citrus and sugar that we need to cook up a couple more big batches of Seville orange marmalade. Marmalades and jams gel with a pectin-reaction, which requires a certain range of sugar content and acidity. This, in turn, affects what I need to buy (e.g. how many lemons). Time to bone up on marmalade science!

People are raving about my first Seville marmalade, which tastes sour, complex, and not-too-sweet. The goal is to make the next batches just sweet enough to store and keep for a year. In other words, I need to understand the pectin reaction (which requires both sugar and acid), as well as the minimum sugar content I need for storage longevity. We don't like things too sweet. I process using hot water immersion, so I'm not worried about pathogens. However, mold or discoloration could happen over time (e.g. a few months), if I don't get a minimum sugar content.

Time to break out the lab equipment. My marmalade laboratory has a great pH meter, and a fantastic Atago PAL-alpha refractometer. The former measures acidity, the latter measures sugar content in %. Let's see how to use them.

High-acidity foods ( pH < 4.6 ) are easy process, using the Boiling Water Bath method. In fact, marmalades are so acidic and sweet, no boiling water bath is required. I like to do it anyway.

Recall pH is a logarithmic scale from 1 to 14, where low numbers are acidic, and high numbers are alkaline/base. Distilled water is neutral, kind of like zero, corresponding to pH = 7.00. As you can see from the measurements below, we are well below pH 4.6, so it is relatively easy and safe to make marmalades. It's a great place to start canning! Here is a great summary of pH vs. processing method. Generally, tomatoes/sauces/salsas are risky, since tomatoes vary and are not quite acidic enough. Don't can those without careful measurements and careful processing!

So, food-safety is not an issue. Flavor and gel-consistency are the tricky parts.

First, let's look at the marmalade I got from a friend in Iceland. You can see below, this is ~52% sugar content, and pH of ~3.6. The sugar content is less than 65%, so this won't keep for more than a couple months at room temperature, even unopened. That's not a problem, as it is DELICIOUS! :) The acidity is high enough that no processing is required. Just pour the hot marmalade into a hot, clean, jar, and then gently screw on the lid. A pro tip is to invert the jars after filling, for ~3 minutes, to kill any stray mold spores on the lid.

​BTW: All these measurements were very repeatable. I saw changes of only +/- 1 in the least significant digit.
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​Next, let's measure my Seville marmalade. This has ~60% sugar content and a pH of ~4.25. My target for the next batch is 66%, or +10% more sugar. This is above the 65% minimum for long-term storage.

My marmalade tastes sweeter than the Icelandic marmalade, but interestingly mine tastes more sour. The Icelandic has lower pH and should taste more sour. Our mouths are not that well calibrated, I guess. If you intend to can a lot of stuff, and store it for a year, then precise measurements make a difference!
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I like to test calibration after using and cleaning the meter. That way I know I cleaned the goopy marmalade and can store it. For now, I'm labeling the marmalades with the measurements too.
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I've read tons of stuff about marmalade science. This is the best summary I've seen. Skip all the cookbooks and textbooks and web blogs, and start with that summary. It's fun to learn about the science behind the foods we eat. If you want to know more specifics, this has more details and some basic recipes. It is a better resource to help you visualize the details and differences.

Supposedly, I didn't have enough acid or sugar for correct gelling. Mine shouldn't have gelled at all, even with added pectin. Hmmmm. I do recall adding extra pectin, and also I reversed the process by adding sugar before pectin. The correct order is to add the pectin first, then the sugar. The full mixture is boiled for a few minutes anyway.

I've modified the Icelandic recipe, with 5x more sugar, added lemon, and added pectin. The recipe has a boiling and 24-hour soaking stage, so that extracts a lot of natural pectin. Citrus and apples are naturally high in pectin.

Anyhow, this time, I'll try to get the pectin reaction working more exactly. From the summary, pectin gelling is best in the middle of the ranges:  2.4 < pH < 3.6    and   60% < sugar < 70% . I'll add some more Seville orange juice (quite sour) and some more lemon juice. I'm going to measure the pH of the various juices before combining them too. What fun!

Finally, I'm going to make two batches. I'll combine the fruit, juices, and rinds, then boil and soak them. Then I will separate into two halves after the 24 hour soak. The first half, I'll add sugar to 66%, and extra acid, if needed. If it tastes too sweet after processing, then I'll use less sugar in the second batch. That second batch will be only for immediate consumption.

The lab starts on Tuesday, so my friend Praveen can help with the science on Wednesday. He's visiting for a code-a-thon. It's going to be a geektastic week! :)
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Vivi got a new raincoat from her grandma. It is very cute! It did the job on this slightly, drizzly, farmers market trip.

She will coo "Hi?", and also poke her hand up and wave. I'll just feel this little creature and see a tiny waving hand. When I lean back, then I see this.

Needless to say, I have to stop eating for a little while each time!
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Vivi's current favorite animals:

1. Owl
2. Dog
3. Mao-Mao (Cat)
4. Octopus

So we got her a springy octopus at the Japanese grocery store. Bonus: It's as magnetic as it is jiggly! She loves it!
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I made a large print on a metal plate. Then I hung it above where we store Vivi's high chair. We can see it while we eat dinner.
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Then, I got two, totally-unbelievable surprises!

First, is a handmade pocket square for Patrick's winter formal parties. It is embroidered and painted by an artist in Hong Kong. I can't wait to wear it next year.
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I got a nice hug from Vivi, who enjoys her tiny backpack and gap-toothed card! :)
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The second amazing surprise is that, somehow, I got the last case of Seville oranges for my marmalade adventure!

If you've been following along, Seville oranges are bitter, sour, foul, seedy, tough, irritable, little gems. Since marmalades have to have high acid content and high sugar, Seville oranges cut through the high sugar. The result is a much more complex marmalade. However, they are not pretty!

​Yum?
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Vivi is very, very spoiled, in terms of food. Mom cooks at least two, multi-course, gourmet meals for Princess Vivi, every day. Vivi even knows the Cantonese word for leafy green vegetables. Lately, Vivi enjoys a classic Chinese desert, fresh orange pieces. She will beg for each bite by name. Sure, her pronunciation could use some work. We prefer Vivi's version of "oranshh" for now.
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My dad introduced us all to orange marmalade, made from sour, bitter, Seville oranges. He discovered a delicious "The Dundee Orange Marmalade", which used to be sold in little opaque crock jars. Then it was sold in opaque glass jars, and now in disappointing clear glass jars. However, the flavor is excellent!

Then, I tried a slightly bitter, not-too-sweet, homemade marmalade from my badminton student's dad in Iceland. Wow! Game On! I just had to try to make my own variation, with Seville oranges, instead of sweet oranges and grapefruit. Also, I wanted to process the marmalade in a food-safe way. That means more sugar, and some boiling-water canning.

Luckily, our amazing local market has a "citrus fest" in February, with over a dozen different kinds of oranges. This was the first time I ever got to see a Seville orange.

A Seville orange is small, really small. They are firm, bitingly-sour, bitter, and full of seeds. Look how little fruit flesh is in one orange. The seeds in this juicer are from only one orange. Every orange had one segment with at least eight, full-sized seeds. It took me over an hour to process only eight oranges. I can process a normal orange in a couple minutes.

That's why I bought over a dozen Seville's, when the recipe only called for 5 normal oranges.

Oranges and lemons processed, crappy Pomona-brand pectin thrown out, Ball Realfruit Pectin ready, my DIY jar holder, two different kinds of jar tongs, 8 oz canning jars...we are ready to go!
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Unlike my previous attempt, orange-flavored hockey pucks, this turned out great!
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