Home At Last! with Patty Gironda

Now that I am regularly making Limoncello I thought why not take the leap and try my hand at other cordials. So far! I have successfully created a coffee liqueur and am halfway through a batch of strawberry vanilla cordial that will ultimately flavor my Strawberries Romanoff at the breakfast table for Casa Bella B & B. Truthfully, the Honeybell Orange Brandy that flavors the whipped cream is perfect all by itself but this seemed like a great use of leftover strawberries. This batch requires another 30 days with a simple syrup that I will create over the weekend. I experimented by placing three whole, peeled prickly pears to naturally sweeten the liqueur and am really happy with the results. It happened on the day that I was checking the status of the flavors that we had a visit from the producers of CBS's 48 Hours.  Somehow we ended up in the kitchen sampling strawberry liqueur and discussing stoves! Lesson learned here . . .always have a liqueur in the making!

    Today is one of my play days. I was due to tape a show but couldn't sleep at all last night-so I opted to wait until tomorrow, leaving me with a little free time between editing and cleaning house. I have shifted gadgets between my two kitchens, checked stage one of the Limoncello batch-strained it and will make the simple syrup and fresh lemon juice batch later today. I also started an experimental batch of a new idea that came to me when I wasn't sleeping. I'm going to try a coffee, vanilla and chocolate liquer. My plan is to make it similar to the Limoncello as that recipe is delivering very consistent results. Two stages-the first 40 days developing the essense and the second 40 days to blend a simple syrup and develop the intesity of flavor. I am starting with the coffee and vanilla beans and in 40 days will make a chocolate simple syrup. Easy, breezy!

        Thinking that we wouldn’t be seeing sunshine and warm weather for a few more days we were forced to create a little faux-sunshine here on the ark with a big box of juicy California lemons. It’s time to make one of the two batches of Limoncello that we will make this year so I solicited my husband-the expert lemon peeler-juicer person in our family. The fragrant oils wafted through the house lifting our spirits and turning our thoughts to Italy! We imagined ourselves living in Tuscany and handpicking lemons from our own trees, tending the olive trees and imagining the first yield of our own cold-pressed olive oil. In the short time we fantasized about our villa in Tuscany, Ron peeled and juiced 10 pounds of lemons. We covered the peels with a quart of vodka and retired them to a nice, cool dark spot where the oils and flavor will be leeched out of the rinds. With some of the fresh juice I created a batch of lemon simple syrup that will begin a transformatio...

Honeybell Orange Brandy Apertif Picture this . . . it’s a strangely dark night, fog blankets the ground near “area 51” (that’s my house number). Strange gurgling burps followed by violent hisses erupt from tiny colorful vials filled with strange liquids. That’s a “teeny” exaggeration. It’s really a little more mundane than that and the test tubes are really dirty dishes waiting on my my husband. I’m just settin’ a little mood, here! Creating recipes and cocktails is one of my great passions. I am often asked how the process begins and I never have a quick answer. I can get pretty excited when I talk about things I love. (See picture) To tell the story I have to share my history. Way back before I ever hosted Home At Last! I was a bartender in New Orleans. My experience and knowledge of cocktails helped land me some pretty cool high-paying jobs in the best places frequented by locals. My enthusiasm for the art of making and developing cocktails recipes has expanded over the years to...