For those of you who don’t know, Limoncello is something between a liqueur and a potable with a powerful punch. It’s basically a way to flavor a strong alcohol (like vodka or Aquavit). Plus its high sugar content indicates you’d better be sippin’ this stuff, not sluggin’ it.

It does take 5 weeks to do, so the best time to make a batch is in spring so it’s ready for summer drinks. But it also makes a very nice winter toddy.

I learned how to make this from my Danish Aunt Ella, a former Miss Denmark – so I think she’s a good source! I’ve made it once so far, with great success – it is very easy. This time around I’m trying it with Lime, and an orange version using Clementine oranges.

Basic Limoncello Recipe

• One 1-quart Mason jar
• One bottle (750 ml) of 190 proof grain alcohol (see notes below)
• 10 lemons
• 2-3/4 cups water
• 3 cups sugar

Step 1:

Wash and dry your lemons (removes any mold spores or other contaminants.) Slice off the ends of the lemons (to make them much easier and safer to peel) and then peel them with a small, very sharp (be careful!) paring knife. You want only the outside rind, avoiding the pale pith just below it (which is bitter). Save the lemons, see notes below. Put the parings in your Mason jar and fill it up with the grain alcohol.

Step 2:
Put the Mason jar in the fridge for 14 days, shaking it once a day to stir things up.

Step 3:
On the 14th day, mix the water and sugar in a saucepan big enough to allow for adding the alcohol. Boil the water and sugar until all sugar is dissolved, ,about 2-3 minutes at the boiling point. Cover and set it aside to cool. (Covering it prevents the entrance of any mold spores and basically helps keep your mix sterile.)

Step 4:
Strain the alcohol from the mason jar, leaving all the parings behind  – but don’t throw them away! See notes below. Add the alcohol to the sugar/water mix, stir it a bit. Then pour it all back into your Mason Jar.

Step 5:
Put the Mason Jar in the fridge for 3 weeks, and shake it twice a day.

Step 6:
At the end of the 3 weeks (actually, by now, 5 weeks) you can put your jar in the freezer. Don’t fill it too far or seal it too tight. Despite the high alcohol content, which means it generally ain’t gonna freeze until you-know-where does, you should leave a little room for liquid expansion. Don’t blame me if you end up with a sticky, messy explosion (hmmm, maybe I should rephrase that!)

Once it’s ice cold, it’s ready to drink – in small quantities. Or you can dash it into any number of favorite drinks and cocktails.

Variations:

I don’t have the “proof” yet, but this time I am trying a batch with lime, and another with the peel of Clementine oranges. Stay tuned for the follow-up when I can report the results, somewhere around October 1.

NOTES:

For us frugal cooks and mixmasters, after peeling your lemons (or limes or oranges) squeeze out the juice. For long-term storage, pour juice into ice cube trays and freeze. Once frozen, you can transfer the block of juice into freezer storage bags.

Don’t throw away the parings after you’re done soaking them in the alcohol! Toss them into a plastic bag and save them in the freezer. They’re great for adding to tea, iced tea, iced water, and cocktails. Probably lots of food recipes too.

By the way, the pared down lemons seem to keep very well in the fridge – so after you’re done peeling them, save one or two in the fridge for cooking or whatever.

It also helps if you live in a state like NC, where you can buy the really hi-test 190 proof stuff in the liquor store (they’re called ABC stores here, for Alcohol Beverage Control, or something like that. ) And, of course, large wide-mouthed Mason jars in the local grocery or hardware store

If you cannot legally get your hands on hi-proof grain alcohol, I have been told you can try the recipe using standard 80-100 proof vodka, but that some adjustments to the recipe are needed. I haven’t tried it yet, but I think a higher ratio of lemon peel to vodka, and a lower ratio of sugar/water to alcohol, would be called for. That’s because a regular vodka is not strong enough to extract “all” the natural aromatic, volatile oils from the citrus peel. And too much sugar-water will over-sweeten the finished goods.

I’ll add to this post when my lime and orange test batches are done. Meanwhile, I’ve already done the lemon version and I can’t tell you how delicious this stuff is!

Until I start a separate blog for biz & personal, here it is. My favorite Asheville NC bluegrass bands & musicians.

I got fired up to post my favorites when Steep Canyon Rangers played with Steve Martin on Prairie Home Companion tonight. This was the best PHC show I have heard in at least five years, without question – and I’ve been listening since, oh, some time in the mists of the ’70′s.

What a stellar performance tonight! Not only did we get the regular cast, and “up and coming” radio performer Martin (sexier than his son and that’s saying a lot) Sheen, we got:

Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers; Stuart Duncan; Arlo Guthrie Heather Massey from the Wailin’ Jennies.

Until NPR and PHC see fit to provide a video I can link to, here’s a good one  I pinched from YouTube just to get you rolling. It’s in 2 parts so be sure to watch both. And Nicky, at least, is probably groaning ’cause I picked Orange Blossom Special

The Steep Canyon Rangers kick the bluegrass into the next county, if not all the way to the moon. I particularly love the fiddlin’ by Nicky Sanders – I’m a closet fiddle player. You can check out Nicky at www.nickysanders.com , or on MySpace, or on Facebook (that boy gets around!)

But there are waaay more to tell you about! In no particular order -

A new CD from Lance Mills, “Wore Out Shoes” – boy can Lance write & sing! Check out his MySpace page at: http://www.myspace.com/lancemillstunes

Then there’s Miriam Allen. She can mix up traditional Appalachian and “south of the border” until you just can’t stay sittin’ down – you just got to get up and dance. Either that, or gaze into your lover’s eyes On her latest, “La Capitana”, it is really hard to pick a favorite, but I love “One Eyed Jack” – you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!!! Give her a listen at www.miriamallen.com or her MySpace page.

How ’bout Town Mountain? Robert Greer can sure croon out a cryin’ in your beer tune. Check out Robert and Town Mountain out at www.townmountain.net .

Ryan Cavanaugh – Wicked banjo! He’s played with so many bands and other musicians it’s hard to pin him down. Check him out MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/banjoryan.

Then of course I can’t leave out my #1 favorite Asheville bluegrass musician of all – Tom Dudley. He likes to mix things up a bit, from traditional to newgrass to country to off-the-wall,for example “Etch-A-Sketch of Love” which got a personal phonecall and a really special thank-you from the Prez at the Ohio Art Company. (Etch-A-Sketch and Ohio Art Company are trademarked, registered, and copyrighted, folks.)

Tom Dudley’s debut independent release by Hoot Holler Music,  “Walkin’ To The Bridge” ranges very widely in style – so if you want to see what he’s got, go to www.hoothollermusic.com. “Walkin’ To The Bridge” features collaborations with his bandmates Jay Mullenax and Paul Leech of County Farm (www.countyfarm.net) as well as contributions from Nicky Sanders, Ryan Cavanaugh, Carey Fridley, Lance Mills, and Daniel Coolik.

This post is by no means complete – i still need to add some links for Carey Fridley and Daniel Coolick & more.

Please tell me about your own favorites so I can add to this post!

I try to keep politics out of my public presence, but I just have to comment on the imprisonment in Iran of journalist Roxana Saberi.

All the pundits and experts I’ve listened to have explained the imprisonment as a inflammatory instigation by hard-right partisans in Iran, who just want to push our buttons and derail any hope for detente.

I doubt it.

This is certainly a TEST of how the Obama administration will react to, and deal with, a disagreement with the Iranian government.

Some History.

According to Mary Renault ( a well-respected historical conjecture author who based her work on ancient and eyewitness acccounts), in her book The Persian Boy, Roxana is a “close approximation” in Western language of the name of Alexander the Great’s Bactrian second wife, translating from Persian to Greek to English. Supposedly meaning “little star”, Roxana is more properly pronounced with the accent of the first syllable – WROX-ann-ah.

Back to Alexander.

At the time he took Roxana as his second wife (around 330 B.C.), he was almost literally king of the world. The only rival at the time was the Persian Empire, which held massive sway over the Middle East and Central Asia. Alexander had temporarily subdued the Persians – even razed the beautiful city of Persepolis to the ground.

Now – what would Alexander do if his wife had been abducted by the ancient Persian empire?

Most likely he’d have turned his army around, pursued and waged war with no quarter until he had her back and had reduced the Persians to total subservience. No doubt with disastrous results. Alexander was Great, but his empire did not hold for long following his death.

But this never happened. It’s just a “what if.”

Are we going to mimic Alexander? Or are we going to model ourselves after the Roman Empire instead?  The Romans -  despite disagreements, political intrigue and skirmishes – managed to keep peace with the Middle Eastern and Central Asian powers from Armenia to India for hundreds of years. (Except for the Levant and Palestine – I am definitely not counting those areas at the moment.)

I repeat – in my opinion this is a test in the time-honored tradition of Persia going back several thousand years. Of course they know the charges are groundless! It is our RESPONSE they want to see.

Did you know where the default heading for the Sociable links, “Share and Enjoy” comes from? (Just look at the bottom of this post.)

It came from one of my all-time favorite authors, Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (TM) books.

In one of the earlier books, when it was still a trilogy (before it became a trilogy of 5 books), automated doors and tea-dispensing machines designed by the Sirius Cybernetics Corp. would encourage their victims to “share and enjoy” as they utterly failed to perform their function. As many Hitchhiker’s Guide fans will know, this had dire consequences on occasion

It seems to me that the Sociable plugin and links are doing an admirable job – you can forward this blog post by email, tweet it, send to facebook, linked-in, sphinn it, even print it out. I love it!

I just wanted to let you folks know about the “Share and Enjoy” relationship to Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Douglas Adams was a genius writer who was taken from us waaaay too soon. He passed away in 2001 from a sudden heart attack (as I understand it). If you have not read the books but took a stab at watching the more recent movie by the same name, PLEASE listen to me. The movie sucked. It did not reflect the books or Adams’ wit in any way. Even I couldn’t sit all the way through it. Lord knows why, but Hollywood has a complete incapacity for translating GREAT sci-fi into movies.

Anyway – read his books!  Get CDs of the original radio play! (I first heard the original radio broadcasts from the BBC when I was a busted bohemian in Cambridge, MA. They are brilliant.)

Douglas Adams not only wrote…. Ok… brilliant again…. sci-fi, he was also a devoted environmentalist and active naturalist. His book Last Chance To See, is about his travels across the planet to document about a dozen species that are right on the brink of extinction. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Adams I would not have heard about Kakapos (New Zealand flightless parrots) or the Lemurs of Madagascar.

In addition to Hitchhiker’s Guide, he also wrote Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. Brilliant. Again.

Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Did I mention Brilliant?

Search for Douglas Adams on Amazon or Wikipedia and find out more about this genius of our time. He may be corporeally gone, but he is still with many of us who will NEVER be able to forget his gift for language, razor-sharp wit, storytelling, and devotion to this home we call planet earth.

My Bird Suet Cake Recipe

The birds LOVE my homemade suet cakes! Yes, I have tried any number of commercially-prepared ones, but the birds seem to have an “ok if I HAVE to eat this, I will.” But they devour the ones I make, and it’s a lot cheaper. (I did calculate it out once, turns out to something like 50 cents a cake.)

This Batch will fill up an 8 x 12 aluminum baking pan. It needs to be “brownie-deep” to hold it all. You will end up with 8 suet cakes.

1. You need wax paper or parchment paper too. Cut a piece of wax paper big enough to line your baking pan with a little overlap, and just sort of press it in there. Doesn’t matter if it springs back out – when you pour the suet mix in, it will settle everything.

2. Ingredients: Exact amounts are definitely not critical

8 large tablespoons of lard. Yes, LARD. NOT veggie-oil based lubricants. Look near the other oils & stuff at the grocery store – most stores in our area carry lard, or a.k.a. Manteca.

4 large tablespoons of crunchy peanut butter.

1/2 of a 1-lb bag of plain yellow corn meal.

“About” 1 and 1/2 cups of sunflower CHIPS/HEARTS. Yes, you can get away with other cheaper stuff like whole (black oil) sunflower seeds, but even though the hulled chips are more expensive, you’re not actually paying more in the long run for “the goods.” And it makes a much better, and neater suet cake. And, no messy hulls on the ground which are suspected of being like Walnut – containing toxins to nearby plants.

OK, enough of the naturalist asides….

Melt the suet and peanut butter on LOW heat – do not burn. When all is melted, add the corn meal, stir to break up lumps, and add the bird seed. Then when it’s cooled a bit pour it into your baking pan lined with wax paper. Throw it in the fridge. Should be solid within a few hours – then you can plop the whole thing onto a cutting board and cut it up into 8 cakes. I wrap mine in wax paper and keep in the fridge.

Don’t be surprised if you need a cake a day!

The secret is Brining it. You’ve still got time, and it’s sooo easy – here’s the how-to:

The day before Thanksgiving, hopefully you’ve begun thawing it out. Place your turkey in a cooler and enough of the following mixture to cover it:

For each gallon of water, add 1 cup of salt and 2/3 cup sugar (and stir it around to dissolve.)

Let the turkey sit overnight in its brine bath in a cool place, such as basement, garage, or even outdoors (as long as it’s not a hard freeze night.) Believe me, it will be fine

When you’re ready to cook your bird, just take it out of the brine, rinse it in cold water, pat it dry and do whatever you normally like to do with your turkey.

One final tip – it really works if you start your turkey roasting upside down, then turn it on its left side, then turn it on its right side, then finally, turn it breast-side-up.

Stuffed Winter Squash

Might as well throw in a couple more family favorites!

Acorn or Butternut sqash for this.

Slice them in half lengthwise and remove seeds.

Stuff them with a mixture of:

1 lb. mushrooms chopped & sauteed.
1 and 1/2 cups SOFT breadcrumbs, or use cornbread stuffing mix.
Add in a lemon squeeze, pinch of ground nutmeg, chopped fresh parsley, and salt & pepper to taste.
Bake at 400 degrees 35 min or until done, in a baking dish with 1/4″ of water in the bottom.

Colcannon

My favorite way to take mashed potatoes to another level. Based on old Irish/Scottish traditional recipe. Scale this up or down as needed.

2 large russet (Idaho or baking) potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks.
3 cups thinly sliced cabbage
1/2 cup chopped white (or Vidalia) onions.
Some milk, some butter, some cheddar cheese and salt & pepper to taste.

Gently boil the potato chunks until ready to mash. Spoon out the potatos and use the same pot to cook the cabbage and onions until tender. While they’re cooking, mash your tatties. Never over-mash potatos or they go gummy!

Drain the cabbage and onions, and add them to your potatos. Add about 1/2 cup milk (or some half and half if you are decadent like me), butter quantities, and salt and pepper to taste. Gently stir it all up.

Place in a greased baking casserole and top with grated cheddar cheese, and bake until it’s all hot and the cheese has melted.

Heavenly! I wa going to try it using baby bok choy instead of cabbage this year but my husband wimped out when he saw the price – so it’s good old fashioned Scots-Irish cabbage again for us. Believe me, after simmering the cabbage in the potato water it will be VERY mild.