On Limoncello

It's the stuff that Danny DeVito was still drunk on when he visited the view. He also makes the stuff himself:

Thick and yellow, sweet and lemony, strong and flammable, the stuff is great, in small doses, and pretty easy to make. John has a skill for it.

After Memorial Day, he sat on the floor, grated 20 lemons and an orange into an canister and then poured in a bottle of Everclear on top. We let it steep for 2 weeks, until the yellow was stripped off of the zest and the lemony smell coming off the alcohol burned our noses a little. No worries; the burn is alleviated by the addition of plenty of simple syrup. Here, the recipes differ (John mostly followed this one from Serious Eats, but minus the flavored vodka) - some suggest bottling (which we did, in old liquor and wine bottles - ecofriendly!) and freezing, and some suggest letting it steep a bit longer. So, we poured a little into a mason jar (yep) and let it go for a while. We've not tried that yet.



Cool limoncello in a cordial is just the thing. A small little shot, just for sipping - we advised people at a dinner party we held in honor of the limoncello to NOT shoot it - goes a long way. While John can handle a couple of cordials worth, I take so long to drink and it's so strong that I can only really drink one in a sitting.

Limoncello isn't difficult to make, and there are tons of recipes out there (I have one in a Giada de Laurentiis cookbook that calls for lemon peels and vodka). There's a lot of fun in making your own digestive. While we don't have the space or the expertise of my friend Brian, who brews his own delicious beer and has for years, it's exciting to be able to whip up something so potent and tasty. It's a great summer activity and a perfect summer drink. And it's nice to have that - something that you enjoy, that's lighthearted and fun.

So long as no one's going on TV still drunk after leaving my house.

On Kristof and the Farmer's Market

Nicholas Kristof is one of my favorite journalists. I rarely miss his column and am often motivated by the things he says. Today's column is another hit.

Lettuce from the Garden, With Worms

An excerpt:
Over the years, though, I’ve become nostalgic for an occasional bug in my salad, for an apple that feels as if it were designed by God rather than by a committee.

I miss an outdoor space, mostly for the way that my basil and mint ran rampant and cheap last year, and all my cooking was spiced with chili peppers, but also for the huge bounty of cherry tomatoes that came over a 3 month period from one plant in a pot. Because I am lazy, I missed out on the chance for a community garden space this year, and all my attempts to sprout herbs in my apartment faded, because even a constant on grow lamp can't really make up for the lack of bright, direct sun. What's fantastic for dinner parties and gorgeous afternoons inside isn't so great for mint or basil.

So I return to the farmer's market, buying clumps of mint, cilantro and spring onions for three dollars a piece, splurging on a box of sweet cherries (eaten all in one sitting last night), gaping in awe at purple and yellow cauliflower, at tiny strawberries just bursting with sweetness, at fresh squash in all shapes, sizes, and colors (my favorites are the striped zucchini, their seafoam green streaked with forest, and the patty pan squash, only yellow and green right now, but the tender white ones are so sweet, and wonderful stuffed and roasted), and being unable to resist the new potatoes, red, white, purple, skins so tender, they flake off with the wipe of a finger.

I love a grocery store, because I love to look at the food, but I'll take a farmer's market for visual effect any day. Because these are not the usual foods, the "committee designed" ones. The cauliflower is yellow and purple, not white, because that's what color it is, not what color sells best. The strawberries, cherries and blueberries are small, because that's how they grow, not grown until huge because that's how they sell (well, I always try to buy the smallest in the store when they're not at the market - they're sweeter). The tomatoes are red-orange, and oddly shaped. Some of the cherry tomatoes are bright yellow. The butter is creamy and white, the eggs are all colors, brown, speckled, pristine white, the butcher sells fat back and pork belly, hard to find even at Whole Foods, the closest butcher to me. The scallions are purple before the greens begin, and the spring onions are sweet and fragrant and pink. The garlic scapes are curled around themselves, a tangle of soft spice. The food is uniformly not perfect - there are spots and rough patches. The cuts of meat are small - no giant ribeyes here. There are flowers, everywhere, and pots of tomatoes and herbs. At the risk of sounding cliche, it's a very real place.

I know the farmer's market does it's own branding of marketing and advertising. There are samples everywhere - 3 kinds of cherries to choose from, lots of homemade cheeses. There are the bigger sellers, like EcoFriendly, which gets lots of attention from writers, magazines, and restaurants in the area (of course, they took all our old egg cartons I'd been saving, so they're not too big!). There's the sense of things being somehow more natural (lots of "grass-fed" and "grown without pesticides" signs) and more healthy (although some information out there suggests that the less far food has to travel, and the fewer chemicals used in its growing, the more nutritionally dense it is), when it may be just a place to get variety. There's a sense of community, and crowd. People are nicer in line there than at Whole Foods or Safeway (although the Safeway checkers around here are so fantastic!). A lot of emphasis is placed on foods being grown by the sellers, or other products being produced locally. The markets near me also place emphasis on education, outreach, and gleaning. So, the way you feel authentic, like a regular do-gooder, when you shop at the farmer's market, even though you probably realize that doing so puts you in a definite position of privilege. But, its a privilege that at least doesn't rely on a middle man, or on "committee approved" packaging or creating.

Being at the farmer's market feels like being in my mom's garden, grabbing up butternut squash or peas before the rabbits do. Oh sure, it may be weirdly shaped, or it may have a little nibble taken out of it. But there's no substitute for the feeling, the hot little sun burnt gourd in your hand, imperfect and whole.

On Hamburgers

(Yeah yeah, I've not posted. There's reasons.)
I can't eat hamburgers out.

Or, more correctly, I won't eat hamburgers out. Part of this has to do with wanting to know where my meat comes from, but most of it has to do with a much more visceral reaction to the thought of possibly tainted ground meat, or ground meat that may have something un-beefy in it. This reaction was etched in my mind after a history of biting into one too many burgers to find a hunk of bone or gristle crunching between my teeth. The very memory makes me gag, and such experiences ended my burger love-affair.

Occasionally I can be tempted by a good turkey burger, like the one I had recently at Elmo's Diner in Durham, N.C., or a Five Guys meal, but for the most part, I have satiated a burger craving with Black Bean Burgers, which are a different thing, and not to be served on a bun, as they are big, and very filling. So, for a little while, I was really missing out on the whole burger bun all-American summer time grill experience.

Two things happened to change all that. One was very quick - John got a meat grinder for Christmas. It remained dormant until the second thing happened - John reread the Cook's Illustrated hamburger recipe. These two things combined perfectly when, about two weeks ago, we both began craving hamburgers.

A pack of shortribs and a pound of sirloin later (we ended up using about 6 ounces short rib to 8 ounces sirloin), we were in the kitchen. But, because this was John's equipment and John's recipe, it was John's show. I busied myself making fries (frozen oven fries), slicing onion and cheese, and chopping lettuce, while he prepped the equipment.

The whole show works best if everything is cold. The meat was carefully cubed (the grind does better with smaller cubes) and chilled. The grinder and a clean metal bowl were placed in the freezer to chill, as well. Finally, the grinder attached to the mixer and the bowl placed underneath to catch the meat, John began to gently push the meat through the grinder (I put the buns in the toaster and got the condiments out of the fridge).


Meat coming out of the grinder.


Ground Meat

Having decided that we wanted thicker burgers than the recipe suggested, we decided to hold them together with egg. We based this on the recipe's claim that meat handled too much would get tough (makes sense - what else doesn't get tough when it's played with too much?) - we didn't want to mash the meat together too densely, so we added an egg as a binder. Subsequent experiments would show that midsized burgers with no egg held together as well as big burgers with egg - that is to say, they're fantastic, but crumbly!

John seared the burgers, leaving a juicy, rare center, a feat not often attempted, by me at least, in restaurant burgers. Piled on a bun with ketchup, mustard, some white onion, a little romaine and some good cheddar, this was a premier burger. Juice dribbled down chins and between fingers. Bits of crumbled meat fell onto plates, and were promptly picked up and popped into mouths. Beefy and rich, this burger didn't last long enough for a photo. But at only 8 bucks a pop (with grass fed beef from Whole Foods), I will probably have a chance to try again. Besides, at the same cost as a restaurant burger I won't be able to finish (damn memory), it is worth it to have a hamburger returned to my world of culinary possibility.