Since getting my ice cream maker at Christmas, my holy grail has been to find fresh Blood Oranges so that I can make David Lebovitz’s Blood Orange Sorbet. When my sister was up from Melbourne I scoured all the fancy markets hoping I’d find them, but no luck. Sydney was Blood Orange dry.
This week though I found them finally – the Blood Orange Mecca – in a small greengrocer in the predominantly middle eastern community I work in in Sydney’s West.
I bought a dozen and couldn’t wait to take them home and juice them. This is me really excited later that night when I was about to start juicin’
I wasn’t prepared for how dark they were (such a great colour!), or their complex flavour. Like the sweetst, most alcoholic of oranges. They taste like concentrated sunshine. A friend of mine told me a story the day I bought them about growing up in Tamworth eating blood oranges straight from the tree as she walked home, and they really taste like that childhood summer walking. Such a treat!
I made such a mess juicing them, because the juice splattered everywhere as I did them by hand with my trusty white porcelain maxwell williams citrus peeler. It probably didn’t help that I felt the need to suck the last bit of juice our of every juiced half, either. I walked away with two cups of juice, but looking like I had also just walked off the set of an episode of True Blood! Totally worth it, though. Juice is sitting chilled in the fridge and I am going to churn it tomorrow morning. I’ll let you know how it goes and will try and take photos. The colour is going to be intense!
In other fun news, I scored tickets to see Sufjan Stevens at the Opera House a few weeks ago. They were late release tickets, so I only knew we were going a few hours before the gig started and had to get there straight from work. Which made it all the more special when I realised what an amazing performance we had been invited into. When people got up from their seats in the middle of Impossible Soul and started dancing, I realised what a great thing we were part of — and then balloons and glitter came raining down. In the Sydney Opera House! It was like a giant dance party, and it was so nice to see everyone enjoying themselves so much. I love a happy concert. I’m going to learn to dance like those girls, I swear.
January was just the most amazing month for live music, and 2011 has barely started!
