Homemade Limoncello

I made limoncello to give as Christmas gifts this year and just made a second batch.  This activity is so satisfying to me because mostly it's time that makes limoncello good.  Once you peel the lemons, there's little left to do but wait for the concoction to become delicious.  {OK, OK, there are a couple of additional steps, but it's so worth it.}

If you're inclined to try your hand at limoncello, here's what you do.  You'll need:

• 15 to 20 beauteous lemons
• 2 750-ml bottles of vodka (at least 80 proof) or Everclear
• Simple syrup (I like a 1-to-1 ratio of sugar to water)
• A large glass container to hold your concoction
• Jars or bottles for the finished product

If you're lucky like me, you're able to harvest the most beautiful, huge lemons from your in- laws' citrus trees in Arizona and then cart them back to California so they can live up to their full potential as limoncello lemons.  Make sure you choose lemons with nice skins that smell good.  I have a feeling that this batch of limoncello is going to be even better than my first one, as I had to use semi out-of-season lemons for it back in September.  This time around, I got huge, in-season fatties that smell heavenly.

Get your vodka or Everclear and decant it into the container you're going to use for your limoncello.  As you can see, I really did go for the cheapest vodka possible.  For your container, a big sun tea jar would be great.  I use a gallon glass container that I picked up at our local co-op.

Wash your lemons and dry them, making sure to remove any debris.  Then peel them.  I use a regular vegetable peeler, but you could also use a sharp knife.  Make sure you are only peeling the yellow citrus skin and not the white pith underneath.  If you leave a lot of pith on your skins, the limoncello will turn bitter.

Once you've thoroughly peeled your lemons, add them to the vodka, leaving at least 2 inches below the top rim of the container.  Seal it tightly and store in a cool, dark place for at least 2 weeks but preferably for a few months.  

I allowed my first batch to steep for 2 1/2 months, which really allowed the citrus oils to infuse the vodka.  If you're like me and enjoy checking on the progress of your projects, feel free to open the container every couple of weeks or so and swirl the peels around.  You'll notice that the peels will start losing their color after awhile, and the vodka will start turning yellow.  That's a good sign!

When the lemon peels have sufficiently infused the vodka, make the simple syrup and add it. For this batch, I'd use 3 cups of water and 3 cups of sugar.  Combine them in a saucepan, boil until the sugar is dissolved, allow to cool, and then add to your container.  For this batch, I'll have to divide it and get another container.  Put the jar(s) back into a cool, dark place for at least another 2 weeks.

When you're ready to bottle your limoncello, get a coffee filter or cheesecloth and strain your mixture through it, pressing out citrus oil from the peels.  I used coffee filters the first time around, but will use cheesecloth next time because I think it'll be easier and allow more of the oil to leak through.  Discard the peels (hopefully into a compost container) and bottle the lemony yellow liquid that you're left with.  Use recycled jars or bottles with tight-fitting lids, making sure that the bottles are completely clean.  Let the bottled limoncello sit for another week for drinking or giving it away.  Make labels to give the limoncello as a gift!

Store your homemade limoncello in the freezer because it tastes best ice cold.  It won't freeze due to the alcohol content.  For a tasty cocktail, pair it with champagne and a dash of Grand Marnier.  For a tasty treat, pour it over your choice of ice cream.

Don't forget about all of your naked lemons!  Juice them and make fresh lemonade or freeze the juice in plastic containers for later use.

I have so much extra citrus from Cole's parents' house that I may try my hand at orangecello or grapefruitcello.  Either would be just as good as limoncello, I think!

Happy Holidays

{Fat angels in our bay window in SF}

'Cause they're not over yet...we still have New Year's Eve to look forward to.

We're back in San Francisco and I'm excited to have a week to decompress from a busy Christmas in Arizona and play with my new camera some more.

Thinking

I'm trying to figure out why I find Mormonism so fascinating.  Part of it is due to the fact that I've lived in close proximity to large Mormon populations for most of my life, but I've never known very much about the history of the church or what they believe.  Part of it is due to the Mormon church's absolutely criminal involvement in the Prop. 8 campaign here in California, which still horrifies me.  Another part of it is due to my reading of a few blogs written by Mormon women around my age, to whom I can relate.  Mostly I suppose it's about reconciling all of these different aspects.

I decided to do some reading on it.  I started with Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, which I finished about a week ago.  {If you're not familiar with the book, it uses two murders by Mormon fundamentalists as a jumping-off point to discuss the entire history of the church.}  It's been on my mind ever since, especially this excerpt, which Krakauer uses to introduce Part III of the book:

One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous.  So I am told; I have not noticed it. ...

You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward the better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. ...

My own view on religion is that of Lucretius.  I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.  I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contribution to civilization.  It helped in early days to fix the calendar, and it caused Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that they became able to predict them.  These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others.

--Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian, and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects

There's a lot to digest that that passage, especially after just finishing Krakauer's book.  So that's what I'm doing--digesting, as I read Mormon Country by Wallace Stegner.

Small World/Smaller Neighborhood

In a very serendipitous turn of events, Cole saw one of my ilivehere: sf photos on a newish Bernal Heights blog this morning. 

This blog contains some serious Bernal Heights awesomeness, including old and new photos of sights around the hill.  Add it to your list of worthy work distractions.

One of My All-Time Favorite Looks

{image here}

I've always loved The Parent Trap--the original movie with Hayley Mills.  A big reason is the AMAZING house that the dad lives in in California.  I love the "Spanish hacienda from the twenties meets midcentury modern" design aesthetic.  In fact, it might be my favorite.  I always gravitate towards Spanish architecture from that time period.  When we were briefly looking at houses in Phoenix to buy (yes, thank God we didn't), the Spanish hacienda-type bungalows from the 1920s and 1930s were always the ones that I ooohed and ahhhhed over.  I think part of it is the bright white, thick adobe walls topped with an earthy tile roof; the Mexican tiled courtyards and patios; and the way that my favorite plants--cacti and succulents--look perfect as landscaping.

I guess I'm not the only fan of Mitch's California ranch house in The Parent Trap.  According to this site, Disney built the shell house on some land it owned south of Carmel on Placerita Canyon Road.  And this site has a ton of photos of the house in all its glory.

{images here}

A recent house tour on Apartment Therapy made me yearn for my own Spanish hacienda all over again.  Although some of this gentleman's interior design choices are a little too New York (his description, not mine) for my taste, what he did with this Los Angeles building makes me want to head down to Southern California to find my own building to rehab.  Maybe someday.

Viel Glück!

{image via}

Wishing my dad, Sam and Chris good luck when they ride in El Tour de Tucson tomorrow morning.  Wish I could be there to cheer them on and then snap photos of their exhausted faces as they cross the finish line.

Pescadero + Harley Farms

After leaving Santa Cruz on Saturday afternoon, we took our time driving back up the 1 to San Francisco.  To our left was the ocean, getting brighter and brighter as the sun lowered in the sky.  To the right, lots of little towns and roadside stands beckoned.

Our first stop was at Pie Ranch, a farm founded to give inner city kids a place to experience agriculture.  I had read about Pie Ranch in connection with Mission Pie, an amazing little pie shop in the Mission in San Francisco.  Mission Pie gets some of its produce from Pie Ranch and in return, Pie Ranch sells Mission Pie-made pies.  Their pies and baked goods looked delectable.

After chatting with the salesgirl and picking out some produce, we hit the road again.  The fact that we left Pie Ranch with a bunch of kale, a basket of strawberries, and three winter squash is a testament to our willpower.

{A shop in Pescadero}

Our next stop, a few miles up the road, was Pescadero, a little town in the hills off Highway 1.  We walked around the main street, which is tiny and boasts a disproportiate amount of antique stores and galleries. 

I spied what looked like an old cemetery way down at the end of this street, so we drove over to check it out.  On the way, however, Cole was distracted by a big wooden cutout of a little girl with a goat.  We'd heard that there was a goat farm in these parts, so we decided to follow the signs.  They led us to Harley Farms, a restored 1910 goat dairy that sells a variety of goat-derived products:  cheese, milk, lotion and soap, and even fudge!

The farm and all of its buildings were really beautiful.  We got a little tub of Pumpkin Fromage (kind of a soft goat cheese spread) as well as an apricot pistachio goat cheese button.  I would really love to go to one of their farm dinners someday--but at $150 a head, it's, uh, a bit hard to justify.

{View of the farm from the cheese shop}

Before leaving Pescadero, we stopped at the old cemetery I'd seen from the road.  It was started in the 1860s as a Catholic cemetery and most of the tombstones and gravemarkers looked ancient.  If the sun hadn't been almost down, I would have taken a lot of pictures of the crazily-tilting tombstones.  Here's one that Cole took out the window of a weather-worn wooden marker.

The sunset was totally beautiful that night as we drove home.  A perfect ending to our trip.