That's a lot of lemon pickle.

I moved to New Hampshire 3 days ago. I think I'm going to love it. I love it already.

As a parting gift to Dugan, I made 5.5 gallons of Indian-style lemon pickle, which all began when I brought home 10 meyer lemons from the neighborhoods of southern California. It is a salty, tart, pungent, spicy condiment which is great on plain rice, alongside curry or in a tofu scramble breakfast burrito (...like I had this morning). It should last him a little while, at least. I have never known anyone to adore lemon pickle as much as he does (I wonder what an Ayurvedic practitioner would infer from that?).

Observe a $95 case of organic lemons, specially ordered by D from Ginny's Natural Corner, around the corner. This quantity of Lemon Pickle is a serious investment

 Also notice prune fingers from hours of chopping, and the seeds, the removal of which I had not factored into my calculations when I agreed to do the job.

 In addition to lemons, this pickle has a bunch of spices, loads of salt and a tiny bit of sugar. The spices are supposed to be toasted, but after an excruciating experience toasting the chili peppers for round one (this was a multi-day event), we decided that burning lungs, eyes and throats couldn't possibly be worth any improvement in taste and toasted and ground only the non-hot spices.

 5.5 gallons is a lot of jars.

To while away the chopping hours, D read to me from his friend Carolyn's book, which I highly recommend to anyone who likes stories about being human.

This is the recipe I used as a springboard. No sesame oil in mine, though I did use some sunflower oil to cover once completed.