Yesterday my brother made a blood orange sorbet.  For months now, he had been asking “when is MOMs getting blood oranges?!” And we finally had a huge bag of luscious organic blood oranges sitting in the fridge.

My brother is 16 years old. He is exploring cooking and baking of all sorts.  Some days I come home to find him rolling out croissants, filling them with almonds and chocolate. Some days I am helping him roll and carve fondant because he has in his head to make a cake shaped just like a peppermint candy. But today belonged to the blood orange sorbet.

It was already snowing, school was canceled; he had all day.  He tied up his long blonde hair with a bandana and juiced that entire bag of blood oranges.  An hour later, we all rejoiced as he lifted up the measuring cup revealing three cups of the dark magenta juice.

A simple syrup and a delicate amount of blood orange zest were added to the juice and all was thrown into the ice cream maker.  As it quietly whirled around for half an hour, we ran between watching the snow fall outside and watching the sorbet swirl around.

It tasted delicious. It tasted fresh. Blood oranges have a sweet and rich flavor that was delightfully and authentically preserved in my brother’s sorbet.  He sat on the couch later that night, with at least six inches of snow on the ground and more coming down, and asked “when is MOMs getting lychees?”

Lilly works at MOM’s Rockville.