The bowl of oranges is no more

On our recent trip to Southeast Asia, Ed and I were served small glasses of juice every morning. Sometimes it was mango, sometimes coconut, sometimes watermelon, sometimes passion fruit, but always fresh. And always delicious.

With those fresh juices in mind, I decided this morning to juice all the oranges left in the big wooden bowl on our counter, the ones we picked down in Florida last month. The ones that didn't make it into the batch of marmalade.

They didn't look like much. Their skins were thin and getting hard, but it seemed a shame to just toss them in the compost pile out by the garden. So I sliced into one and found it full of juice. I set to work. Using a hand-held olive-wood juicer I cranked my way through the bowl of oranges and watched the measuring pitcher fill up with fresh juice.

Once done, I strained the seeds out and filled a half-gallon mason jar.

I took a sip.  It tastes nothing like store bought juice. It tastes lighter/fresher than the Simply Orange or Minute Maid juices that I used to buy. It tastes just like the oranges I've been eating for the last month from our bowl on the counter! It smells just like the marmalade that I made last week from the bowl of oranges on the counter! It is the essence of the bowl of oranges that sat on our counter. It doesn't taste like the bowl of oranges on your counter, only the ones on my counter. Duah!

(If you have ever wondered why the brand of orange juice that you buy always tastes exactly the same from bottle to bottle, but distinctly different from another brand, click here. Be forewarned, it isn't pretty.)

It's a lot of juice – more than Ed and I will drink this week – but I'm thinking of making a mocktail to serve to my nieces who are coming out tomorrow with their French exchange student. If you have any ideas, send them my way.