Blogatron

Produce Cowboy

If I am not around as much in the coming weeks, if I do not seem to be up to snuff with the complaining and the blithering, it will be because I am tending a saucepan filled with lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, eggs, and butter until it becomes lemon curd and then lovingly straining the curd into a bowl and mixing in the vanilla and then refrigerating the bowl until it is cold and solid and then shoveling the sweet sweet lemon curd into my gaping maw, maybe on tea cake, maybe with just a spoon, until I am barely conscious and can eat no more and my pants explode from the stress of containing my ever-expanding lemon curd physique. Because like crack to the crackhead, so is lemon curd to me. There is nothing better.

I will start skipping work just to cook up a bowl, then eat it, quick, and take the rinds to the dumpster so Josh doesn't find out. I will go to the farmer's market and say, "These lemons - are they juicy? Those ones you sold me last week, man, I barely got a quarter cup out of those, had to go to the Store 24 at 3am and get that preservative-filled shit in the bottle. Treat me right - you know I'm your best customer. Do you take credit cards?" I will whisper, "Hey - psst - hey you. Want some curd? It's good. Trust me; I've been doing it for months and I never felt better. Come on, have a bite. I'll start you out easy - just spread a little on this graham cracker here. Thaaat's it."

When they come for me, when they pry the big spoon from my sticky fingers and remove the doorframe so the crane can heave my morbidly obese corpse out of the house, they will wonder about the smile on my face. Little will they know that somewhere I am thinking, "It was all worth it. I'd do it again for the lemon curd."

LEMON CRACK CURD

In a medium stainless steel or enamel saucepan, whisk together until light in color:

3 large eggs
1/3 cup sugar
Grated zest of 1 lemon

Add:

1/2 cup strained fresh lemon juice
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Cook, whisking, over medium heat until the butter is melted. Then whisk constantly until the mixture is thickened and simmer gently for a few seconds. Using a spatula, scrape the filling into a medium-mesh sieve set over a bowl and strain the filling into the bowl. Stir in:

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Let cool, cover, and refrigerate to thicken. This keeps, refrigerated, for about 1 week if you think it'll last that long, sucka! Muahahahahahaha! Makes about 1 1/2 cups.

Posted by hilatron at July 27, 2003 12:17 PM