An ode to marmalade

'Waging battle over a jar of marmalade seemed petty beyond belief so I simply lost my craving for the preserve,' the author writes

Thirty-four years, one month and nine days after we were married, my wife finally made a vat of orange marmalade at home. It was not at my persuasion, dear reader, the illusion that she would pander to my tastes having being shattered 12,449 days ago. Having a fondness for bitter rinds in the conserve, and finding local brands in the stores sickeningly sweet, I might have expressed the hope that tiny mandarins from the garden be turned into confiture. My wife wasn’t one for such ministrations. “If you want homemade marmalade,” she told me in no uncertain terms, “you can