Sunday, July 18, 2010

When Life Gives You Lemons...


... make Lemon Snow!

I grew up in Los Angeles, which if not the land of milk and honey, is definitely the land of lemons and avocados. Almost all social gatherings included an exchange of surplus, and I pretty much figured that they were always free.

Imagine my shock when I moved out on my own to San Francisco, and was expected not only to pay for lemons and avocados, but to pay through the nose! Luckily, for the past two years I've lived in a home with a prolific lemon tree that thrives on benign neglect.

A few weeks ago I got up the gumption to pick a lot of lemons and spend an hour or so zesting and juicing. I used some of the juice for making lemonade for the boy to sell at our recent yard sale (yes, I squeezed the lemons and make the lemonade, and he kept the profits. I've got to fire my agent) Making the lemonade was not without its hazards - see the end of this post for what will go down in Starr family legend as The Lemonade Story.

While sales at the boy's stand were brisk (a few senior citizens even tossed him a couple of bucks extra as a reward for my, I mean his, industriousness) there was some leftover at the end of the day, which we froze in ice cube trays


Today I made the kid and his pal a treat of Lemon Snow - both to reward them for playing nicely all afternoon, and to kill the last 15 minutes before the designated Wii time

To make Lemon Snow, fit your food processor with the grater attachment


Pass lemonade ice cubes through the feeder tube


Et Viola! Fluffy, cold, sweet, tart lemon snow

For the kids, I piled it into a cup, added a slash of lemonade, and served it to them with Slurpee spoon-straws. For grownups, I'd add a shot of cold vodka.

And now...

The Lemonade Story

I made my first genuine batch of old-fashioned homemade lemonade

2/3 cup sugar
1 cup water
zest of 1 lemon
1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 quarts water

Add the sugar, water and lemon zest in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Let the syrup cool, and strain out the lemon zest. Combine the syrup, juice and water in a large pitcher and chill. Serve over ice


I'd made it in a gallon jug with a spigot and added sliced lemons. It was picture-perfect! I placed the jug in the fridge and spent 10 minutes or so cleaning up the kitchen. I went to put something else in the fridge and the lemonade was.... GONE!

There was only an inch or two in the jug. I hadn't left the kitchen, and no one else had come in or out. Can you guess what happened?

The shelf in the door of the fridge had activated the spigot, and the lemonade had flowed out and filled the fruit crisper drawer! Can you believe it? I was definitely glad it hadn't flowed onto the floor, but it was still a big ol' mess to clean up, and a waste of "free" lemonade which had been pretty darn time consuming to make.




3 comments:

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  2. I never would have thought about the spigot draining the lemonade like that. It must have been a big mess, but as you said, at least it didn't leak all over the floor.

    The lemon snow looks great! So much better than the Italian ice cups we buy at the supermarket. :)

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