Home At Last! with Patty Gironda

I might be going a little overboard with the smoked meats but it's so irresistable when it's so easy! This classic market and festival favorite among Tuscans is easy to recreate at home in America!

        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...