Back in the spring, when I first encountered the smoky, fiery, spreadable Calabrian salami called nduja at London’s Borough Market and posted on it (on April Fool’s Day, no less), I had no idea that nduja fever would sweep American meatheads and that my posts on trying to recreate this salami would become the most frequently viewed of all I’ve written. Apparently, you don’t have to taste the real thing to catch nduja fever; its regional nickname, as “the Red Nutella,” is enough to enflame the imagination.

The biggest obstacle I faced in reproducing what I had tasted is that I don’t have access to any of the Calabrian peppers that traditionally go into this salami. Seeds from Italy had already sold out of Calabrian peppers for the season, and Scott over at Sausage Debauchery is the only one to have tracked down some concentrato di peperoncini with peppers from Calabria at a reasonable price – almost a kilo for a little more than $10 – but I have yet to see a can of it! (Hint, hint. If he can’t send me a mail order address, maybe we’ll just have to do Christmas early this year, and mail him some goodies from the clubhouse in exchange for some cans of fire concentrate.)

In the meantime, I am working on perfecting a secret weapon of my own to turn up the heat.

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This time of year I begin to notice the shorter days, as it’s dark now when my alarm rouses me to get up and go running. Some mornings, I feel a nip in the air that makes me put away the shorts and reach for jeans instead. I look around my garden and feel that mounting, primordial anxiety about getting the harvest in, about storing up enough of the season’s bounty to see me through the winter.

Around here, most people are concerned about whether this fall will be warm enough and long enough for a good corn harvest. In my little world, I look at the fresh herbs and chili peppers and wonder how I’ll live without them for the next six months.

Some plants I’ll put in pots and move into the workshop to keep me company while I work on building a sauna and converting our guest room into a library this winter (two other great ways to stay warm and make plans for a new year). But fruits call to be preserved, and one “fruit” I can reliably grow (for myself, that is, instead of the birds and squirrels) is hot chili peppers.

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No, not after you’ve drunk it all, silly (that would be the mother of all hangovers), but after you’ve made a batch of vin d’orange, you’ll have a pile of peeled blood oranges and be wondering what to do with them.

Marmelade is an obvious choice. Just finish peeling the oranges, tear the sections into smaller pieces (discarding any seeds), layer them in a wide, heavy pot with sugar (mixed with a teaspoon or two of citrus pectin to help it set up), and add some citrus peel (in addition to some extra flavor, this will also contribute pectin to the preserve). When the sugar has leached out a little juice, turn the heat on, and bring the pot to a boil for a few minutes. That’s all there is to making some of the best marmelade you’ve ever tasted.

This year, I’ve decided to keep things simple, as in simple syrup. I simply finish peeling the white pith off the oranges, pop out any seeds, layer the sections in a heavy pot with sugar, and then let it sit for a few hours to allow the sugar to start extracting the juice. No added water to dilute the flavor! Cooking fruit normally turns it to mush, but when fruit is poached in a sugar syrup like this, it actually firms up, as water is drawn out and sugar is drawn in. Then you have both preserved fruit and fruit-flavored syrup.

You could use this preserve as is for putting on pancakes, layering in cakes or trifle, or spooning over ice cream. Think about a pork loin roast stuffed with preserved blood oranges and then basted with the syrup! Or separate them and use the fruit for one thing and the syrup for another. Blood orange syrup should make some bloody good cocktails! How about a blood orange margarita? If you like sauvignon blancs from New Zealand, try this twist on a kir and add a splash of blood orange syrup instead of the traditional cassis. While you wait for your vin d’orange to mature and mellow, you can also fortify your patience with a couple variations on those classic Campari cocktails, the Negroni and the Americano, substituting blood orange syrup for the sweet red vermouth.