Airbnb Coachella guests

I have been hosting Airbnb guests and Airbnb Coachella guests for over a year now and love connecting with world travelers.  We have made friends and shared our table and home. This month we will host 65 guests from 27 cities, and now we have guests from Australia, Virginia and Paris, all here for the Coachella music festival.  Bill brewed a good french roast coffee this morning, made toast with fresh crusty bread and served his tangy orange Marmalade, that went down a ‘treat.’ Coachella draws a huge crowd from all over the world and last year it made over $84 million. The hipsters have hit Palm Springs and I love the energy they bring to our laid back community. The sun is shining today and the high will be 82º which is perfect because the desert winds are blowing wildly and will cool the hot festival crowd down.

The last Airbnb Coachella guests have left for the shuttle and we have the house to ourselves. All is quiet, the birds are singing and I’m stuffing my mouth with leftover Black pepper chicken. The depth of flavor that has developed overnight is beyond explanation.  All I can say is, use your imagination or better still, try cooking this dish yourself you wont be disappointed.

Bill’s Orange Marmalade

Makes 7-9 half-pint jars

• 8-10 large oranges, peeled and crushed/chopped (reserve the peel in as large pieces as possible).
• 2 Lemons, peeled and sliced
• 8 cups of water
• Sugar
• 1 tsp Pectin
• Candy thermometer or digital thermometer
• 9 half-pint sterilized canning jars with lids (jars boiled for 10 minutes in canner, lids lightly simmered in pan of water)

1. Scrape the pulp from the orange peel with a peeler or small knife, reserve the pulp
2. Collect the pulp into a cheesecloth square and tie the corners up to make a sack with string attached
3. Cut the orange peel into thin strips 1/8″ wide
4. Boil the water, crushed oranges, lemon, orange peel strips together until the peel is tender
5. Measure the remaining liquid and add 7/8 cup of sugar per cup of liquid (add more or less for sweeter or more tart finish).
6. Tie off the cheesecloth sack and float in the liquid
7. Return to boil over high heat, stirring constantly
8. Cook over high heat as the liquid will start to gel until the liquid reaches at least 220ºF
9. Taking three jars out of the canner at a time and placing them on a towel on a counter, fill each jar to within 1/4″ of the top
10. Using tongs, place a lid on each jar from the pan of simmering water and lock seal the jars with screw-on bands (Make lids tight but do not force-tighten the lids on)
11. Place sealed jars on a towel in a still location to set overnight
12. Repeat until all liquid is jarred, sealed and placed away to set.