things that will always make me think of my dad: peeling oranges

i love oranges. they're my favorite fruit. they're my favorite color. i love blood oranges, navel oranges, valencia oranges...

i love peeling them. when i peel them, i try to peel them in one long strip so that i can put the peel back together in a reasonable facsimile of the orange. navel oranges are the best for this, blood oranges the worst. it's weird - it's one of those things that totally lets me escape and still my ever-whirring, busy little brain. and once it's peeled, i get to eat an orange.

my dad was much the same way - loved oranges, loved peeling them. however, he was far more fastidious than i in MANY ways. so for him, peeling oranges was easily a 15 minute job. to peel an orange like my dad, you'd need a thick-skinned navel orange, two knives, a 3 paper towels, and a plate.

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got all that?

okay, instructions:

1. take the first knife - paring, naturally - and peel the outermost layer of the skin. (our peeling techniques were similar in that he'd try to do it in one strip)
2. take the outer peel, and place it on the paper towels (stacked, to absorb any stray juice).
3. take paring knife and gratifyingly peel off strips of the pith.
4. place pith in an increasingly pyramidic pile on the outer peel on the paper towels.
5. break the orange into sections.
6. take the sections, one at a time, and use the second knife (far thinner, and longer... maybe a vegetable knife?) to slice the section jackets open and slip the orange slice out in a juicy mess
7. place naked orange slices on place, section jackets on orange refuse pyramid on paper towels.
8. repeat until all sections are naked.
9. top pyramid with the navel of the orange.
10. eat your orange 16476537 hours after starting to peel it.