My Marmalade Vacation in Florida

On vacation in Sebring, FL with my parents, who have rented a villa in this Central Florida town. Central Florida is known for its citrus groves (the Florida Natural and Tropicana orange juice factories are in this region), so everywhere we drove, there were miles and miles of oranges and grapefruit which thrive in the sandy soil and high annual rainfall. There are even a grapefruit and orange tree in the backyard of the villa where we are staying. The fruit looks brown and unappetizing, but we picked some, and the grapefruit was juicy and sweet, as were the oranges.

On the drive back from Orlando (Universal Studios and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, for the ten-year-old in our group), we stopped by Davidson's of Dundee (dundeegroves.com), a marmalade and orange candy factory and store.

This place, whose citrus candy operation has been featured on the Food Network, makes nine kinds of marmalade, an orange-pecan-cinnamon preserve, four kinds of citrus jelly (Key Lime, Orange, Pink Grapefruit, and Tangerine), and orange "butter" made from finely chopped citrus peel.

Their marmalade was a very pretty: clear jelly with peel suspended in it. But I have to admit, we didn't love it, as it was made with corn syrup--way too sweet for our taste. It's a lovely place to visit, though, and the citrus candy was nice. They even had milk chocolate alligators for sale, which I was tempted to buy for my godson's Easter basket.

Tomorrow, we're going to McCracken Farms (mccrackenfarms.com) to pick oranges; I can't wait!