I Am a Chef - Meyer Lemon Spaghetti

Jay is usually my "main squeeze" but this week I am squeezing citrus!  January is a wonderful month for citrus in southern California.  A walk through the neighborhood takes you past homes with orange and lemon trees heavily laden with golden globes of fruit.  The farmers' markets stalls overflow with every variety of citrus imaginable: blood oranges...reminiscent of la bella Sicilia, cara cara oranges, Fremont tangerines, oroblanco grapefruit, Mexican limes, and sweet Meyer lemons.   If you are as fortunate as I am, you also have a friend like Gloria who calls and says..."Please come over and pick some Meyer lemons.  The limbs of my tree are going to break!"

So what to do with such a bounty?  In years past we have gone all out and made Limoncello. We created our own Italian version of a moonshine still on our kitchen counter, carefully peeled off the lemon zest, soaked it in Everclear Grain alcohol, mixed it with simple syrup and gifted it to friends, but somehow the urge to repeat the process isn't present this year.  As I looked at my overflowing basket, I thought.

Some lemons would be squeezed into ice cube trays and then bagged as frozen cubes of fresh juice for future recipes.  I am watching my calories, so lemon pie was not an option.  I can also make some more preserved lemons for my Morrocan chicken Recipe.

Then I remembered a wonderful dish we ate in Sorrento, Italy many years ago.  Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast is Lemon Heaven and the fount of Limoncello in Italy.

Limoncello and our Kitchen Clock from Sorrento!

The dish was a simple spaghetti dressed in a lemon sauce.  Such a recipe is not part of my family lore, so I went to Google.  Among the 1, 210,000 links returned when I searched for "lemon spaghetti recipe" was one from a blog, In Erika's Kitchen, with a recipe that looked perfect!  This recipe uses Meyer Lemons and Goat Cheese.  The recipe is here.  It was quick and easy to make and we enjoyed it.  The Meyer lemon is sweeter than regular lemons so it is a subtle lemony taste.  The other recipes were similar but did not call for the goat cheese, so it could be left out.  However, it did not overwhelm the dish and created a creamy essence to the sauce.  So now I know... when life hands me lemons, make lemonade...or lemon spaghetti.   

Grazie!...Gloria and Erika.