Limoncello brewing

Way back in November during a birthday party, my girlfriend Jen passed along two bottles of her homemade Limoncello. They were crafted using organic Meyer’s lemons. Bottle#1 was just the straight stuff while bottle#2 was rosemary infused. Yummy!

Around the end of December/beginning of January I decided to try my hand at this amazing elixir.  Nothing fancy, just the basic stuff. After perusing the web for a variety of recipes I finally settled on the SlowTravel Italy site. Please visit the Slow Travel Italy site for the complete recipe. Below is how I approached it:

Part 1

1 bottle (750 ml) Everclear (95% alcohol 190 proof)

1 bottle (750 ml) good but not premium vodka (40% alcohol 80 proof)

15 large organic lemons (w/out scars or flaws… kind of tough to find organics that way) from First Alternative!

Part 2

3 cups filtered tap water

4 cups sugar

With part 1, pour your bottles of hooch into a very clean 1 gallon jar w/ lid. Clean your lemons well to remove pesticides and other icky stuff. Dry lemons. Use a sharp paring knife to remove several long strips of skin without the white pith on the back. These strips will be your testers. Finish the remaining 14+ lemons using a micro-plane zester to remove the yellow skin. Place skins/zesting into the jar w/ alcohol. Cover and place in cool dark place for the magic to happen.

I did all these steps and placed the jar in a lower cabinet for the next 40+ days. Supposedly the batch is to be stirred every week… but I never did. After about 50 days I checked the long strip of peel for flexibility. It was supposed to “break like a potato chip”. I was thinking it would be super crisp, but not so. When I bent it, it eventually broke with a snap but nothing like breaking a chip. If it just kept bending, then the batch would not be ready. Maybe I should have waited longer… but 50 days seemed to be good enough!

Part 2 involves straining the liquid through many filters and adding a sugar solution for final curing. Sugar is combined with the water and boiled for 5 minutes then allowed to cool (I placed it in the fridge overnight). You can see from the photo below the basic straining process. I placed #4 coffee filters into a funnel and poured in the alcohol/lemon infusion. The process does clog the filters so make sure you have many on hand (used 6 total for my batch).  After you strain the entire jar, clean the original jar and do a second filtration back to the original container. Probably allow around an hour for this straining process.

After the goods have been put through the second filtration, add in the cooled sugar solution. The mixture goes from looking like pee to a cloudy lemon sauce. Stir and put the lid back on.

I didn’t like my original container and split the batch between two containers. Now it just hast to sit for another 40+ days back in the dark cabinet.  Think it might be a hard wait!

Chocolate Fantasy & Art Auction

The Arts Center’s Chocolate Fantasy is fast approaching. Starting at 6pm on Saturday February 27th, club level of Reser Stadium in Corvallis, 10 chocolatiers will strut their stuff to benefit the Arts Center (Beaver Catering, Bad Cupcakes, Burst’s Chocolates, Feast Alternative, Francesco’s Gelato, Jillicious Desserts, Novak’s Hungarian Restaurant, OSU Catering, Rocket Queen Cupcakes & Springhill Country Club). Besides the fabulous chocolate and voting for your favorite, there will be loads of art up for auction. Silent auction will be ongoing through the evening. The Live auction has artwork, travel with OSU football team, a cottage in France’s Dordogne region for 6 and much more.

Tickets are still available at the Arts Center and at the event.

Did I donate a piece? Yes, only after Bernie tugged on my arm for a while.

5 drying

Heavy rain showers, sun breaks, hail & wind, we had it all today! George and I made our rounds through mushy fields at the park. I saw two red-tailed hawks and one eagle.

I managed to finish 5 pig gut covered wire “pillow” forms this morning and the house still reeks of it. Here they are in drying form:

It’s still challenging to take split intestines and spread them thinly over a wire surface and stay put. The process did speed up by the fifth one (and I almost ran out of gut).  Now I just wait for them to dry and shellac the surface (which should prove to be yet another learning experience). I’ve decided to use shellac to protect the gut for a longer life.

Actually started contemplating yet ANOTHER project. This one would be similar to the reliquary project but involve bees (thanks to a new Facebook friend). Several months back I found part of a large paper wasp nest up at the park. I’m thinking it could easily become window coverings for a shrine to bees. Plus I have fixings for another walnut box!  But wait! The oak leaves are calling to be made into a coat and the kinetic forms are needing attention and tree prints to make…. so many ideas and I don’t know which one to pick! Guess I need to keep moving with what’s on my plate.

Evelyn’s Tree Print: Finished?

Feeling about finished with Evelyn’s Tree. Tried to adjust one section that was having problems and wasn’t successful. Adding linoleum back into the block just isn’t possible.

Next step will be to set up a silk screen to drop color over the image. It can also be just in black & white if people prefer. I can envision sunset colors or blues & greens.

More wire and gut

I’ve been playing around with more wire in hopes of finding something that feels right. This concept has been in the works for a couple of months and I was anticipating finishing it for the Howland Community open. But then life changed.

Current status: in progress.

Displayed on the table are the wire forms waiting for gutting. Gut is located in the metal bowl. The gut was soaked for over 24hrs and rinsed several times.

The wire squares measure about 4.75″ per side. Annealed wire and a brass wire ball suspended within. When it is covered in gut, it will be more of a “pillow” shape.

Close-up of a single square.

Just gutted. This took  a while and quite a bit of gut. I’ll have to soak more to complete the others. Notice how the wire is already starting to rust due to the salt packing of the intestines.

After the square has dried overnight it gains a more translucent appearance. The reddish lines are created by the rusting of the wire.

Still have more to cover and then I’ll get to work on the display.

Thanks for looking!

Evelyn’s Tree Print

I was able to show her two stages of this print before she left us.

Here is the progress so far:

This is a linoleum block print. I’ve drawn the image onto the surface with pencil then reinforced the lines using permanent marker.

This is the same block in carving stage.

This is a proof of the block. It allows me to see how fine the lines are getting and what parts still need to go.

Still have quite a bit more to carve. We shall see how it all turns out and I’ll keep you posted!