Sure, it's summer in Houston, which means 110 in both the Fahrenheit and humidity columns, but there are some plus sides to living in a swamp-furnace: we can grow our own limes!
When I was young the only person around who could grow citrus fruit was local aristocrat Lord Bath, in the Orangery at his stately home. Now I can grow them by planting a tree in my front yard! This is known as "class mobility".
Not that it was easy. We had to go to a nursery for local plants and promise that we wouldn't take the tree we bought out of the county, but having signed the paperwork, put the tree in the ground, and waited two years, we finally have our first crop of limes. And what were limes invented for? Gin and tonic.
Unfortunately, our limes are kaffir limes, which are a lot more wrinkly than your standard lime, and have a pungency about them deriving from the huge amount of lime oil in their skins. As such, I can tell you from bitter experience that they are not very pleasant when dropped into a G&T.
A quick online search informed me that I should be using the leaves rather than the fruit for cooking, or maybe just a little zest in green curry, and that the "essential oil" I can extract from the skins makes for an excellent and effective household cleaning spray.
But if you think a generous portion of household cleaner in the glass was going to stop me finishing my gin...then you don't know me very well.
Look what I grew!
Easy does it.
Ripe and wrinkly, just like me.
That is a fine lime, even if I do say so myself.
Worth the two-year wait. Sort of.
