It has always been marmalade! Mum makes the best ever, but when I do not get the small yearly jar, I have to resort to alternatives. As kids we were allowed marmalade and marmite on our toast in the morning ( no jam, and definately no chocolate spread) .  Jam was the ‘filler’ -‘if you are still hungry there is bread and jam’ -that white sliced bread which we took delight in squeezing between our fingers until it turned onto dough  and  jam that was usually something red, that may once have been related to a strawberry,  is possibly the reason why I really went off jam for many years, as I was always hungry, so ate a lot of bread and jam, possibly why I cannot tolerate gluten anymore.

For some reason marmalade is not as popular as it used to be, for me it is definately my preserve of choice. My favourite choice is thick dark and chunky -got to have big bits in it…shredless marmalade is for softies. Marmalade should be bitter and butch. I am very partial to Frank Cooper course cut marmalade, ‘Frank Cooper (1844–1927) was a British Oxford-based shopkeeper and marmalade manufacturer.He ran a shop with his wife, Sarah Jane Cooper. His wife made a batch of 76lbs of marmalade using a secret recipe in 1874 and this became the basis of ‘Oxford Marmalade’ ‘(quoted from wiki) Frank Cooper’s marmalade was taken to Antarctica on Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition to the South Pole.  A jar was found buried in the ice, years after the expedition. Anything I see at a local school or fete that has big bits of peel in it and looks the colour of deep amber, I buy. I am also very partial to Tahini and marmalade, on an oat cake or rice cake or gluten free toast- the sort of  grown up, bitter peanut butter and jelly.

SONG OF THE DAY AINT NOBODY Chaka Khan-my favourite bit of this song is the electric guitar that comes in  at verse 2 -. But the whole song is just a serious groove.