Sicilian women don’t waste anything. Not food, not time, and certainly not lemons. Growing up, my mama would turn the simplest things into magic. A bowl of bruised fruit became jam, a pile of stale bread turned into meatballs, and a tough week could always be softened by a shot of homemade limoncello.
When I had my double mastectomy, I thought of her a lot. She faced her own surgery years before me, and she never once complained. Instead, she poured herself a glass of wine, kissed me on the forehead, and said, “We’re not broken, we’re just seasoned.” Leave it to a Sicilian mama to find poetry in pain.
So, when I healed enough to stand at the counter again, I decided to make limoncello. Not just for the drink, but for the ritual. Peeling the lemons, steeping them in vodka, waiting for the sweetness to come through. It felt like therapy in a bottle.
Every sip reminds me that healing takes time, and joy has to be made intentionally. You don’t need everything to be perfect, just bright, bold, and a little bit strong. Kind of like limoncello. Kind of like us.
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