The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday – but never jam today. – Lewis Carroll

Who says life doesn’t start at fifty? A couple of years ago, I transformed myself and began a career as a professional writer. Two or three years later, just a week ago, I became a hôtelière, a hotel owner, a hotelkeeper (yes, yes, Fawlty Towers, The Bates Motel, L’Auberge Rouge, I’ve heard it all). The Boss Lady. Yet it didn’t stop there. With a new profession comes another and now I am also a confiturière. A jam maker. Now, for whomsoever knows me, knows that I love to bake. But jam? That made my knees turn to jelly and go all wobbly. I was really in a jam.

I had never made jam before. But Laurent came to the rescue. The Hôtel Diderot has a long history of jam making; in fact, homemade jams, jellies, and marmalade are an integral part of the house, interwoven with its history and reputation. Mme. Lainel, who owned and ran Hôtel Diderot with her husband from the early 1960’s through 1979, began the tradition by producing classic jams using fresh ingredients from her garden. Mme. Kazamias, who, with her husband, followed in the Lainel’s footsteps, continued making jam but brought her own personal touch to the business: her French roots, her husband’s Cypriot ones and their time together in Africa were all reflected in the jams she produced for the hotel.

And then came the Dutheil siblings, Laurent, Françoise and Martine, in 2003. Laurent, with his cooking school diploma and his restaurant background took over the jam making, once again adding his own personal touch and taste. I had no idea what to expect the first time I sat down to breakfast at the hotel and found myself in front of twenty-some pots, each holding a different flavor jam, jelly or marmalade. And this was only the tip of the iceberg: over the course of a year, Laurent made upwards of sixty different flavors! Can they really be that good? I thought to myself, thinking of the grainy, murky homemade jams I had sometimes tasted in France. I tried the Blueberry-Black Currant jam first and heavens! It was fabulous! In flavor, in texture, in smoothness and clarity. The orange marmalade (traditional Dundee Marmalade) also had me swooning. Okay, I was in. Lead me to the kitchen. I accept my responsibility and my destiny!

The jelly – the jam and the marmalade, And the cherry-and quince-“preserves” she made! And the sweet-sour pickles of peach and pear, With cinnamon in ’em, and all things rare! – And the more we ate was the more to spare, Out to old Aunt Mary’s! Ah! – James Whitcomb Riley

“It’s orange season,” Laurent explained, “so we’ll be doing 18 kilos of bitter oranges for Dundee Marmalade and about the same of Sweet Orange Marmalade using the Maltaise oranges.” We ordered the bitter oranges first. And when they arrived we washed and dried half of them, juiced them and chopped them. The process for his Dundee Marmalade takes three days. I watched as the oranges and sugar macerated then cooked, noting the change in color, texture, thickness. And then we jarred them. We worked with 6 kilos at a time and ended up with a bit more than 60 jars of marmalade.

And some with a twist! “What do you think of adding cocoa powder to one batch?” Laurent asked me. “The flavor is divine! Maybe my favorite of all the jams!” Of course, I said yes, jumping up and down, imaging the best chocolate-orange cake I had ever made and eaten. “Or whisky?” he asked. Jean-Pierre overheard and said “Oh make whisky!” So of course we made both.

And as we began whizzing cocoa powder into the third and final batch of bitter orange marmalade, Laurent told me the story of how this flavor combination came about: many years ago, when they had just taken over the hotel and could not yet afford a receptionist, Laurent had the copper basin of oranges and sugar bubbling away on the stovetop in the kitchen upstairs when he heard the phone ring. Alone in the hotel, he ran downstairs and answered. A while later, still on the phone with a client, he realized the marmalade had been cooking alone for quite some time. Promising to call back the client, he hung up and ran upstairs only to discover that the concoction had begun to burn, caramelizing on the bottom of the copper basin. He stirred and stirred, only to release bits of dark, overcooked, burned residue from the bottom and watched, horrified, as it floated to the top. Frantically, he and his sister tried to pick out and skim off the dark bits only to find more and more appearing. It was hopeless. But loath to throw the whole basin of marmalade away, they asked each other “What can we do to save this mess and hide the dark brown bits?” Unsweetened cocoa powder! And that is how Bitter Orange – Cocoa Marmalade was born. And it tastes just like a Pim’s cookie.

Laurent is an incredibly talented jam maker and the perfect teacher;his instructions are clear and precise, he tells stories to fill up the time we spend stirring, he transmits his knowledge, his confidence and his good humor while we cook. And I am just so proud of my first jams.