The Amalfi Dream

Looked better than it tasted ... but it does look nice with cranes skating on the surface ...

Chilling ...

the limoncello, that is, in the freezer right between the non-vegan rib eyes from a local ranch and non-vegan half gallons of Texas ice cream (intense chocolate and natural vanilla bean).  They say that limoncello should be served icy cold; having tasted it at room temperature and finding it vile I am hoping that some time in the freezer makes all the difference.  Last evening I tried it in a simple little cocktail called the Amalfi Dream, with vodka and triple sec, shaken with ice and served over cubes with a twist and it was, sorry to say, disappointing.  I should have known better than to use triple sec, jeez what was I thinking, and with Cointreau right there in the cabinet?  I've heard tell that there's a distillery in Portland that makes a decent triple sec -- another reason to move, perhaps? 

BTW, what makes the chocolate ice cream "intense" is the addition of fudge swirls and semi-sweet chocolate chunks, delicious on it's own but even better cut with a little natural vanilla bean served along side in the same dish.  Especially good while watching The Colbert Report. 

a thing of beauty

is a joy while it lasts!!!!!

(notice the hammock in the background -- perfect for sipping icy limoncello in the moonlight?)

Limoncello, so near and yet ...

It's time to bottle the Limoncello, hell, it's time to drink the Limoncello, and here I am still without the proper equipment for filtering and bottling.  Just last week I had the opportunity to score some cheesecloth and blew it.  I was at a birthday party and because I had a slightly greater ability to guess people's sexual fantasies than anyone else during a party game (it was much tamer than it sounds) I got to choose among several party favors presented on a lovely silver platter:  bows, a Billie Holiday CD, earrings, a soy candle, cheesecloth ... and I chose the candle.  The cheesecloth stands alone.

Today it's off to Hobby Lobby for cheesecloth, World Market for bottles, and wherever one goes to find a funnel, and tonight there will be Limoncello.  Honestly, I'm a little intrepid, never having had the stuff and having no standard by which to judge it's strength, flavor, sweetness, acidity, blah blah blah.  Plus when I added the simple syrup to the zesty alcohol infusion 53 days ago (but who's counting?), which involved actually inhaling the alcohol fumes, I woke up the next morning with a migraine the likes of which I've experienced only a handful of times in my life.  I'm quite sure it was from the cheap tequila the Spectrum Health Club (yes, you read that correctly) had used for margaritas served at their Mother's Day dance party earlier that same evening, which I drank because any time I do a dance demo in front of a couple of hundred people I like to have a good belt of tequila first (about one shot per 100 people is about right).  From now it will be a belt of good tequila rather than a good belt of tequila, or in the best of all possible worlds ... both.

Holy Batshit Robin!

I can't believe, dear fill-in-the-blank, how long it's been.  I got side-tracked making hula hoops, and you have to take a moment to imagine, I mean it, how it looks and feels to take a stack of hoops with you to your cancer survivor Nia class in your Mini Cooper, and still manage to buckle your seat belt.  They will not, repeat not, fit into the "trunk"  (hah!), so the only way to transport them is to actually wear them while driving -- it helps to listen to something, anything really, from Motown (I suggest "Signed, Sealed, Delivered ... I'm Yours).

So, signed, sealed, delivered, I'm back!!  I have missed you 'till it hurts ... don't let me disappear for so long again ... please, s'il vous plait, por favor ...

tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you, tomorrow

Tomorrow it will have been forty days since I began the Limoncello, and have thus reached the halfway point.  It will be celebrated by mixing a simple syrup and adding it the infusion, and beginning the search for proper limoncello glasses in which to serve it and bottles in which to preserve it (hah!  it will be gone so fast my head will spin (or so I hope)), but still I plan to decant it into proper bottles.   Tomorrow, tomorrow ...

Meanwhile, today I sip a Hendricks martini, with a twist, which was waiting for me when I got home today from having my hair cut.  Hair stylists always want to blow my hair dry into a silly poodle-do, and then I have to come home and make it simpler, and I make a bee line for the bathroom like an embarassed, newly sheared dog hoping that no one sees me along the way.  My husband was smart enough, that is, he took direction well enough, to have my martini poured and his eyes closed when I got home -- what a man. 

ROTFL

Oh man, I needed that.  It's been about 12 hours since I first read it, and it still makes me laugh so hard that my tummy muscles ache.  It's the New York Times Magazine this morning, with its' recipe for Hisbiscus Punch -- good enough ingredients (basically it's Red Zinger, but who's counting?) -- but the part about vodka being optional?? There I go again ... whew ... it hurts so good to laugh this hard ...