Unlike much of the country, Sacramento isn’t blanketed in snowy white in the dead of winter. We are blessed instead with plenty of green, with flowery shows of red and pink from camellias, and displays of bright orange and yellow from the grapefruit, lemons, kumquats, and oranges decorating the citrus trees that grow everywhere around here. Citrus season is the winter, and when nothing else seems to want to grow, we have an abundance of fruit. In fact, many of the boulevards in downtown Sacramento are lined with Seville orange trees, which anyone can pick, and which produce a sour fruit perfect for zest, marmalade, orangeade, and for baking. For this recipe I used a couple navel oranges from our tree, but truly any orange will do. It’s the zest that has the highly flavorful orange oil that you need for this quick bread.

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