I’ll never forget the day my sister excitedly showed me a new kitchen utensil from Pampered Chef. She was so excited about it and continued to explain to me how it works. It was a lemon stopper. It’s kind of like a cork-screw type contraption that screws into the lemon, you squeeze the juice out and then you stop it up again. That way the lemon could be saved in the refrigerator for several weeks. She explained it all to me with her eyes wide in amazement and then even asked me if I wanted one. I flatly said no and I think that hurt her feelings. She asked, “why not?” I said that during lemon season here, in Paraguay, there are so many lemons that we would actually PAY someone to take them off our trees.
Well, it’s lemon season, now. We just cut down one of our 4 lemon trees. It may have had 1000 or more fruits on it. I DID freeze some for rice and potato salad during the winter months. Mom and grandma taught me to do stuff like that. We squeeze them on food and salads and throw the rest away knowing that there are thousands more outside. We drink them in juice and terere. We make lemon squares, lemon meringue pie, lemon cake, lemon bread, etc. We dip Paraguayan tortillas in pure lemon juice and salt. We drink it straight for colds or add it to a cup of tea. We use them to clean off the barbecue grill. Some spray it into their dark hair thinking it’ll become blond. Some people use them for burns and others even dare to use lemons as deodorant.
Now, almost every time I go out to pick lemons, I think of my sister. I wish I could send some of these beautiful lemons to her…anyone want some fresh lemonade?
No comments:
Post a Comment