Picture if you will the mandarin, the scholarly imperial bureaucrat immersed in poetry, the dedicated civil servant in his finest regalia sipping a dainty cup of expresso. Now picture the mandarin, the majestically orange, oblate fruit, the clementine or the tangerine pierced by the finest expresso beans and smothered in the waters of life. One more Mandarincafécello and I will have to pull out my copy of "The Selected Poems of Du Fu".
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Meet my two new pets - Mirka and Niedamir. You'd think that with 3 dogs and 4 cats we would be done with taking on any more pet ownership responsibilities. But, these pets are easy. They live in the refrigerator. As long as you take them out about once a week, to feed and play with, they can live forever. Not good for snuggling or playing fetch, they can however help with an endless supply of delicious, sourdough baked goods.
Sure it was raining a few days ago. And yes we expect some rains again this week. Ok it's not all that warm for SoCal and there is lots of snow in the mountains, we like to keep our snow in it's rightful place. But, all the plants in my yard think it's full blown Spring.
I've always liked the idea of making my own cheese, well, actually, I've always liked the idea of making most of my food myself. In fact one of the first books I've ever bought for myself was 
Few thing smell as good to me as onions frying in butter or especially bacon fat. It's always a good start to any tasty sauce or meal. In the Polish village tradition it can be a dish all onto itself. The poor man's answer to the rich man's butter - smalec.
Limoncello is an old, traditional, Italian lemon liqueur made by infusing vodka, grappa or some other hard liquor with lemons or lemon peel. It got some notoriety in the States recently by the excesses of Danny DeVito and Avril Lavigne but it has been enjoyed as an end-of-meal refresher and pick-me-up for centuries.
I'm big on tea. My favorite is black tea. I drink 2 or more cups every day. Sometimes I'll go for the naturally flavored black teas like jasmine, bergamot (Earl Grey) or rose. I like to have a Nalewka with my evening tea. Hmmm… what if I made a tea flavored Nalewka? Sounds easy enough and opens up a whole kettle of possibilities.
This was a staple for me when I was growing up in Warszawa. My grandmother, Maria, lived with us and did most of the cooking and putting up with me. Unfortunately, by the time I got into cooking Babcia was dead. This recipy is from memory - just like Babcia made them.
In SoCal the winter is citrus season - lemon trees, lime trees, mandarin trees, etc are all heavy with ripe fruit. I bet a lot of this backyard goodness just goes to waste. At this time of year, even though I try, the ground under my key lime tree is covered with rotting limes.
On Sunday Rachel, Margo and me went to the Long Beach Convention Center for the 2009 AKC/Eukanuba National Championships. This was our first time ever at a dog show. Rachel was very exited and she had high expectations of what it was going to be like. I don't think it lived up to that and I'm glad because it's like your first Star Trek convention - you don't want to get addicted.
About 4 years ago my in-laws, Syd and Marcello, gave me a pomegranate tree for my birthday. I planted it, curb side, in front of the house and it has done rather well. This year I got quite a few pomegranates but the neighbors took most of them. I decided the last 2 had to go into making a Nalewka.
This one, as well as several other recipes I've made, was inspired by the book 
