Sweet Orange Marmalade

Marmalade is mentioned often in Harry Potter books. Hermione avoidds discussing her very busy schedule with Ron by asking for some Marmalade. (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Ch. 6).I am not an Orange Marmalade fan so I made this one just to get it out of the way. But, I have never made homemade Orange Marmalade and I have now discovered that there is a big difference between Homemade and store bought. The reason I haven't really liked Marmalade is because it seems so bitter tasting. With the homemade made version I was really able to control the bitterness. Bucholz suggested to scrape out the white part of the orange because that is what makes the marmalade bitter. So, basically with this recipe you boil the oranges for 1 1/2 hours, then pull them out and peel them and then Juice the orange flesh, and scrape the white out of the orange peel. You really can scrape it very thin, to the point where you just have a very thin orange peel, and then mince it in small pieces. I over cooked the jam and it gelled a bit more than what it should have. It doesn't really spread, but that is my fault! It now just tastes like an orange candy though. I will probably try to make this again so that I can try it as a spread, not as a candy.
English History: "A Scottish merchant brought his wife a load of bitter Seville oranges, not very edible. Instead of saying, "What do you expect me to do with these?" as an ordinary housewife might have done, she marched into the kitchen to experiment, and thus orange marmalade was born." ("The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook," Bucholz, pg. 110)
Greif Help: I was motivated to make the marmalade and soup this week the day I heard about Carlie's baby's issue. I needed something to preoccupy my mind and found the self-motivation to just cook, and it helped. Its interesting to see how cooking and doing these meals really is helping me out and giving me an "out." I was explaining to my friend Natalie how you scrape out the white in the orange peel to make the marmalade and she told me how it applied to me in a way. I am a different person from my loosing my Ruby, and through cooking through my grief in a way I am scraping out my emotions and hopefully be a more refined, compassionate, and understanding person from all of this. Its great for me to see that my goals this year and truly helping me through.