Here at Saving the Season, I don't accept advertisements and I don't do any quid pro quo endorsements. So you can trust me when I say that I really like Felix Doolittle stationary. (Oprah and Martha also like it.) Felix's new line of canning labels, BELOW, are some of the most attractive I've seen, and when he sent word of his upcoming Memorial Day sale, I thought the news was worth sharing.

Felix actually does a whole line of kitchen labels—for bakers and chefs as well as preservers—in a variety of shapes and styles. The shop is near Boston but the collection is sold online at www.felixdoolittle.com.

Spring is time for strawberry-rhubarb jam.

For sauerkraut.

From Mud Creek Ranch at the Santa Monica Farmers Market. (Also at the Hollywood FM on Sunday.)

Last night my friend Gary made a pork roast using a David Chang recipe that ran in The New York Times under the headline "The Bo Ssam Miracle." It lived up to its billing. For my part, I took some homemade kimchi and a jar of my new Strong Marmalade, a powerful and penetrating Seville orange (aka bitter orange) preserve. Gary had the great idea to serve some marmalade with the pork, and it was in-CRED-i-ble.

Strong Marmalade is also my favorite of all the marmalades for breakfast. The oily, almost spicy orange flavor stays with you for many minutes. It's not for the faint of heart, but it's unlike everything else.

My Strong Marmalade is now for sale in very limited quanties: $12 for eight ounces. If you're interested, email me using the Contact link at the top of this page.

In other news, my Scotch Marmalde (three citrus plus a drop of single malt) is now being sold in Los Angeles at Lindy & Grundy as well as online and in-store at Standard Goods. In Brooklyn, look for it at Bien Cuit.

I'm teaching two marmalade classes this weekend, so thought I better get into the kitchen to make sure my recipe still works. I love working with citrus, and blood oranges are the prettiest citrus of all.

UPDATE: Manon has shared a link to a detailed and useful recipe (in French) for calamondin marmelade. I don't have time to translate it right now. Can anyone help?

FURTHER UPDATE: Great news! Camilla of www.preservationsociety.ca has very generously translated the recipe for calamondin marmalade. Thank you, Camilla! Now a final question: where can *I* get some calamondins?

See the full recipe by clicking through below:

This morning at the Hollywood Farmers Market, I got a nice surprise from farmer James Birch of Flora Bella Farms: cardoons, a thistle that's related to artichokes and tastes somewhat like them. Cardoon stems make a good pickle. James should have more at the Santa Monica Farmers Market on Wednesday. Don't miss this tasty rarity.

II just got back from the Owens Valley, where I was helping to plan next summer's local gardens. My favorite idea is to focus on chileño peppers, an heirloom variety that's well adapted to the area and pickle well. But whatever gets planted, there will be canning to do at harvest time.

The picture above was taken on the Owens dry lakebed. A hundred years ago, there was enough water there to float steamships. Now there is an akali desert dotted with rank puddles. You know what happened? Los Angeles got thirsty and helped itself to all the water. (Cf. Chinatown.) LA still takes the lion's share of Owens Valley water.

The gardens I'm helping plan are a way to recuperate the local water for local good.

I've been down South—Greer, SC, to Asheville, NC, to Sharp's Chapel, TN. In Asheville, my mom and Don and I ate wonderful food, from the down-home fried green tomato BLT at Twelve Bones to the brilliant tapas as Curate.  In Tennessee, my dad and I gathered wild upland cress, dandelions and watercress, fried wild rabbit, dug turnips from the garden. I'm always sorry to leave, but I brought some food back with me, shipping home a box of: Suber's Mill stone-ground grits and cornmeal, Benton's bacon, sorghum, black walnuts and my mom's muscadine jelly, which is as good as any grape jelly I've ever tasted.

Above is a picture of Ada Mae's pantry. She passed away recently, and I wanted to get a picture of the room in her house I remember best. Those are her tomatoes, green beans, pork bones and sausage. I miss her.