14 February 2009
good news from kansas too...just not from florida.
i could make a joke about the author's name or i could be mature. here, read.
06 February 2009
Just saying hello
My first contribution... Hey... Everybody....particularly the ever-hounding over-powerful da-shey. Talk to you later.
02 February 2009
mellow yellow
Pursuing knowledge for its own sake is something, don't get me wrong, but on the dark and lonely days, there is no denying that the best thing about being an academic is, of course, mobility. All the long, seemingly endless years of grad school, the tortuous hours of dissertation writing, the time lost in the dark, dusty stacks of libraries and archives, the pervasive and anxiety-inducing feeling of never, ever being finished with anything, ever, and the students who interrupt your lectures to ask where the bathroom is...and, of course, the paycheck that never covers the bills (okay, i realize this is my fault more than the Academy's fault...), all this seems like a trifling price to pay when you realize that on a Monday like a thousand other Mondays you and your family will leave your home on the bitter, wind-swept prairie (or just the snow-covered suburb) for a warm, sunny place where you are expected to do nothing but write, read, and cook. It makes it all worthwhile.
And, so, on a winter's day last week, while most of you were recovering from ice storms or snow storms or some other kind of bone-chillingly cold storms, while you were sitting in your cold houses cowering under your cold blankets, I was picking fifty organic lemons off a tree in central Florida in shirt-sleeves. And, somehow, while you are now throwing things at the screen, I'm hoping that this post helps you enjoy, vicariously of course, some of the warmth and rejuvenation I have experienced here this winter. (If not, well, make the booze anyway. It will keep you warm).
The lay of the land here, about an hour and a half south of Orlando, is all citrus, all the time. While we are smack-dab in the middle of vast, commercially owned orchards that rely on copious amounts of chemical fertilizer and migrant labor to produce the juice you may be drinking as you read this, the small plot of land we occupy here has been owned by the same family for over a hundred years and possesses a small grove of oranges, lemons, and grapefruits (plus a few guava plants and mango bushes) that get very little human attention save for picking. These trees are gnarly, mottled, ugly things. But my how they make beautiful fruit. When Jonathan and I decided to come down here for the winter this year, the promise of abundant, organic lemons was foremost on my mind. More than the rest, the remove from daily cares of life back in Lawrence, the time to read and write, the dream, for those of you who know about my obsession with this stuff, was to make enough limoncello to see me through the rest of the year. Finally, after watching the little lemons turn from their promising chartreuse to their full, sunny yellow, the day arrived.
Upon my description of limoncello, a friend who has never had it suggested that it sounded like the magical nectar that the elves gave to Frodo to bring him back to life after he was attacked by wraiths. I couldn't really have said it better myself. For if ever I were to find myself having been poked in the chest by a sharp stick that may represent a manifestation of pure, unadulterated evil, limoncello would be a fine remedy--perhaps the only remedy, indeed. I say this because even if it didn't save me, it would make dying a lot more enjoyable. You see, to the uninitiated (and you should initiate yourselves tout de suite), limoncello is a viscous liquid that tastes like life--sunny, sweet, tangy life. It is ice cold, and, upon being poured, it looks like the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen...in or out of a frosty little glass. Citrusy yet somehow milky, it wants to fall down your throat, it wants to give you vitality. Unlike wine or beer or scotch, which want to stay in your mouth to mellow before they go down the hatch, and unlike vodka which demands that you swallow or die, limoncello just happens to you, not unlike love really. And so, having a lot of it on hand, just sitting in your freezer in anticipation of you drinking it--even if you don't expect any terrible encounters with wraiths and even if you're not on some sort of epic quest to destroy a world-ending piece of bling--seems an excellent idea.
So, you get it, right? I can stop talking about why you should care and talk about how we made this and how, in, like 60 days, we are going to have a couple of nice big vats of beautiful lovely luscious heavenly miraculous...limoncello.
Well, first, the recipe. Recipes for limoncello--which is, of course, Italian in origin--are many and varied and there is at least one website devoted solely to experimenting with various preparations. The website is super useful and betrays its author's obsession (which would appear to well-eclipse my own) with this particular eau de vie. I've used the basic recipe listed there as a baseline. What the future holds is unknowable (for at least 69 or so more days) but I can't imagine it won't be amazing.
The critical thing to understand about making limoncello is that instant gratification is completely and unalterably elusive in anything but the most purely aesthetic sense. You will need to comfort yourself with the sight of a glorious jug of lemony-yellow liquid just sitting in your refrigerator among the half-eaten take out and the semi-full pickle jars lurking in there for two-three months before you can do any drinking at all. But, there it will sit and when you need to feel like life is full of promise and possibility, open the fridge door, move the pickles out of the way, and behold (then, drink something else). Considering how unrelentingly cold and gray this winter has been for many of you, I should think that the mere sight of this jar of sunshine should have a salutary effect, but I am sitting in a sundress right now, in early February, next to an open window, so maybe I shouldn't be presumptuous about such things...
Anyhow, back to the recipe. So,making limoncello demands a two phase process. First, you flavor the alcohol with lemon, then you sweeten the flavored alcohol.
For phase I, you will need:
17 lemons, organic and unwaxed if possible (wax scrubbed off if you can't find them unwaxed--use a veg brush or a plastic pot scrubbed to do this)
2 750ml bottles of pure grain alcohol (this was hard to find so I went with cheap, 80 proof vodka)
(Ain't that just a bowl of freakin' sunshine...)
Anyhow, you will want to wash and scrub, as noted above, your lemons. Then you'll want to start distilling your booze. So, in lieu of getting everclear, which I totally spaced on at the ABC, I got 80 proof vodka and then decided to purify it. You want the liquor to serve as a blank slate for the lemon flavor, with no cheap vodka-ish aroma or aftertaste. How do you do this, pray tell. You begin the incredibly tedious process of filtering your liquor FIVE times or more, if you can stand it (I couldn't). You can use your Brita or Pur water pitcher--just remember to change the filters before you return to filtering water--lest disaster (though potentially pretty funny disaster) ensues.
While that is going on (and it will go on for a veeeeeeerrrrryyyy looooonnnggg ttttiiimmmeee), you need to be zesting like you've never zested before. A microplane is the tool of choice here because a box grater, no matter how fine, just won't quite let you get all the oily goodness out of the zest. Here's what the whole scene is going to look like. It's very CSI...
You'll want to have some large jars ready (uh, should have told you that earlier). I used a 64 oz Mason jar for each batch. And, I had cleaned them the night before and allowed them to dry upside down on a clean towel (should've told you that too...). The 64 oz jar holds just about all of the 1.5 liters of booze plus the zest. You'll lose about a half cup of vodka and because its monetary (and gustatory) value will have increased exponentially because of the amazing amount of time it took to filter it, I suggest that you make yourself a cocktail for your troubles. I had fresh orange juice on hand so I just tossed together a Harvey Wallbanger. (Harvey makes very good company in the kitchen as it turns out; he's quiet but supportive).
Okay, so, that's pretty much it for the hard labor.
Now, the zest goes into the jar.
Once it has finished distilling, the vodka goes into the jar. The jar is sealed. You shake it around a bit. And, it just sits there looking gorgeous in the light of the setting sun...see...
and see...
Then, after all that, you put the lid on, put the jar in the recesses of your fridge, sip your second Harvey Wallbanger, and...wait. You wait for 45 long days.
Of course, the first hour or two of that 45 days is spent cleaning up the mess that you have inevitably produced in your quest for limoncello. To be certain, you are left with a lot of naked lemons--17 of them to be precise. Now is the time to pull out the juicer and use your by-products.
Save juice in ice trays--you can thaw later for guacamole, cocktails, pies, soups, etc. Will taste just like fresh.
Then, after dumping the rinds in the compost (you might want to chop them up a bit in the food processor or by hand if you want them to disintegrate any time in this century), you're done.
And the waiting begins. I've got 38 days to go. I think I'll blog Phase II in real(er) time.
In the meantime, envy me not dear friends as you shiver and shake. Make limoncello and rejoice.
And, so, on a winter's day last week, while most of you were recovering from ice storms or snow storms or some other kind of bone-chillingly cold storms, while you were sitting in your cold houses cowering under your cold blankets, I was picking fifty organic lemons off a tree in central Florida in shirt-sleeves. And, somehow, while you are now throwing things at the screen, I'm hoping that this post helps you enjoy, vicariously of course, some of the warmth and rejuvenation I have experienced here this winter. (If not, well, make the booze anyway. It will keep you warm).
The lay of the land here, about an hour and a half south of Orlando, is all citrus, all the time. While we are smack-dab in the middle of vast, commercially owned orchards that rely on copious amounts of chemical fertilizer and migrant labor to produce the juice you may be drinking as you read this, the small plot of land we occupy here has been owned by the same family for over a hundred years and possesses a small grove of oranges, lemons, and grapefruits (plus a few guava plants and mango bushes) that get very little human attention save for picking. These trees are gnarly, mottled, ugly things. But my how they make beautiful fruit. When Jonathan and I decided to come down here for the winter this year, the promise of abundant, organic lemons was foremost on my mind. More than the rest, the remove from daily cares of life back in Lawrence, the time to read and write, the dream, for those of you who know about my obsession with this stuff, was to make enough limoncello to see me through the rest of the year. Finally, after watching the little lemons turn from their promising chartreuse to their full, sunny yellow, the day arrived.
Upon my description of limoncello, a friend who has never had it suggested that it sounded like the magical nectar that the elves gave to Frodo to bring him back to life after he was attacked by wraiths. I couldn't really have said it better myself. For if ever I were to find myself having been poked in the chest by a sharp stick that may represent a manifestation of pure, unadulterated evil, limoncello would be a fine remedy--perhaps the only remedy, indeed. I say this because even if it didn't save me, it would make dying a lot more enjoyable. You see, to the uninitiated (and you should initiate yourselves tout de suite), limoncello is a viscous liquid that tastes like life--sunny, sweet, tangy life. It is ice cold, and, upon being poured, it looks like the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen...in or out of a frosty little glass. Citrusy yet somehow milky, it wants to fall down your throat, it wants to give you vitality. Unlike wine or beer or scotch, which want to stay in your mouth to mellow before they go down the hatch, and unlike vodka which demands that you swallow or die, limoncello just happens to you, not unlike love really. And so, having a lot of it on hand, just sitting in your freezer in anticipation of you drinking it--even if you don't expect any terrible encounters with wraiths and even if you're not on some sort of epic quest to destroy a world-ending piece of bling--seems an excellent idea.
So, you get it, right? I can stop talking about why you should care and talk about how we made this and how, in, like 60 days, we are going to have a couple of nice big vats of beautiful lovely luscious heavenly miraculous...limoncello.
Well, first, the recipe. Recipes for limoncello--which is, of course, Italian in origin--are many and varied and there is at least one website devoted solely to experimenting with various preparations. The website is super useful and betrays its author's obsession (which would appear to well-eclipse my own) with this particular eau de vie. I've used the basic recipe listed there as a baseline. What the future holds is unknowable (for at least 69 or so more days) but I can't imagine it won't be amazing.
The critical thing to understand about making limoncello is that instant gratification is completely and unalterably elusive in anything but the most purely aesthetic sense. You will need to comfort yourself with the sight of a glorious jug of lemony-yellow liquid just sitting in your refrigerator among the half-eaten take out and the semi-full pickle jars lurking in there for two-three months before you can do any drinking at all. But, there it will sit and when you need to feel like life is full of promise and possibility, open the fridge door, move the pickles out of the way, and behold (then, drink something else). Considering how unrelentingly cold and gray this winter has been for many of you, I should think that the mere sight of this jar of sunshine should have a salutary effect, but I am sitting in a sundress right now, in early February, next to an open window, so maybe I shouldn't be presumptuous about such things...
Anyhow, back to the recipe. So,making limoncello demands a two phase process. First, you flavor the alcohol with lemon, then you sweeten the flavored alcohol.
For phase I, you will need:
17 lemons, organic and unwaxed if possible (wax scrubbed off if you can't find them unwaxed--use a veg brush or a plastic pot scrubbed to do this)
2 750ml bottles of pure grain alcohol (this was hard to find so I went with cheap, 80 proof vodka)
(Ain't that just a bowl of freakin' sunshine...)
Anyhow, you will want to wash and scrub, as noted above, your lemons. Then you'll want to start distilling your booze. So, in lieu of getting everclear, which I totally spaced on at the ABC, I got 80 proof vodka and then decided to purify it. You want the liquor to serve as a blank slate for the lemon flavor, with no cheap vodka-ish aroma or aftertaste. How do you do this, pray tell. You begin the incredibly tedious process of filtering your liquor FIVE times or more, if you can stand it (I couldn't). You can use your Brita or Pur water pitcher--just remember to change the filters before you return to filtering water--lest disaster (though potentially pretty funny disaster) ensues.
While that is going on (and it will go on for a veeeeeeerrrrryyyy looooonnnggg ttttiiimmmeee), you need to be zesting like you've never zested before. A microplane is the tool of choice here because a box grater, no matter how fine, just won't quite let you get all the oily goodness out of the zest. Here's what the whole scene is going to look like. It's very CSI...
You'll want to have some large jars ready (uh, should have told you that earlier). I used a 64 oz Mason jar for each batch. And, I had cleaned them the night before and allowed them to dry upside down on a clean towel (should've told you that too...). The 64 oz jar holds just about all of the 1.5 liters of booze plus the zest. You'll lose about a half cup of vodka and because its monetary (and gustatory) value will have increased exponentially because of the amazing amount of time it took to filter it, I suggest that you make yourself a cocktail for your troubles. I had fresh orange juice on hand so I just tossed together a Harvey Wallbanger. (Harvey makes very good company in the kitchen as it turns out; he's quiet but supportive).
Okay, so, that's pretty much it for the hard labor.
Now, the zest goes into the jar.
Once it has finished distilling, the vodka goes into the jar. The jar is sealed. You shake it around a bit. And, it just sits there looking gorgeous in the light of the setting sun...see...
and see...
Then, after all that, you put the lid on, put the jar in the recesses of your fridge, sip your second Harvey Wallbanger, and...wait. You wait for 45 long days.
Of course, the first hour or two of that 45 days is spent cleaning up the mess that you have inevitably produced in your quest for limoncello. To be certain, you are left with a lot of naked lemons--17 of them to be precise. Now is the time to pull out the juicer and use your by-products.
Save juice in ice trays--you can thaw later for guacamole, cocktails, pies, soups, etc. Will taste just like fresh.
Then, after dumping the rinds in the compost (you might want to chop them up a bit in the food processor or by hand if you want them to disintegrate any time in this century), you're done.
And the waiting begins. I've got 38 days to go. I think I'll blog Phase II in real(er) time.
In the meantime, envy me not dear friends as you shiver and shake. Make limoncello and rejoice.
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