On Broiled Grapefruit

Or, as I like to think of it, hot citrus!

Welcome to the Friday post for paid subscribers. This is our first recipe of the year for 2024, which is going to be a year of delightful food and drinks! I’m excited to keep sharing recipes with you, and I’m excited to tell you that this year will feature both recipes that I’m making right this very minute as well as recipes from the archive that are being re-tested and photographed as we speak. On Tuesday, all subscribers will receive a post detailing one of my new photographic obsessions: thrift store still lifes.

Am I the only one craving anything and everything orange, grapefruit, Sumo, lemon, lime? I know that January is heralded as citrus season, of course, but I think there’s something deeper going on here. Either the marketing that Big Citrus has pushed every winter has finally seeped into my cranium or my body has completely depleted its stores of Vitamin C after my seemingly interminable third stint with COVID. Maybe both! (Before you ask, I am up-to-date on all of the vaccines. I think I just leave the house too much?)

In any event, I’m over here buying citrus like it’s going out of style. Every time I go to the grocery store, I come home with something new. My favorite flavor of the moment are those tiny oranges that come with tiny leaves still attached. I cannot get over them! I don’t even really care what they taste like or that they have a peel so thin it’s un-zestable. I love that they have leaves attached: it reminds me that somewhere in the world, a tree with green leaves exists.

It’s only January, and I’m already talking like this. Ah, winter in Chicago. The only way out is through, as they say, likely about something much harder than a few months without the sun. In the meantime, you can make this delightfully easy dessert (breakfast?) to ward off any winter blues.

Broiled Grapefruit with Honey and Tajín