Fancy a squeeze? Leaf it out, will ya?

It's the time of year when grocers where I live start selling citrus fruit with leaves on. Odd

Normally, the tangerines, clementine, orange and lemon ranks are just piled as they are.  Perfectly acceptable in appearance, but just as they are.  But I've noticed more of this creeping in here.  Outbreaks of leaf action in the Christmas run up.  I'm sure that's quite commonplace in uber trendy urban areas where people buy sausages wrapped in brown paper,  and say things like 'Ya it's all very villagey here, don't  you think...?' but not here it isn't.   And another thing.  They're sold in boxes.  Those shallow, flimsy, wooden boxes with printed adverts that I suppose name the grower or distributor or whatever, I can't say I've stopped to read one.  But they do, I confess, look really nice and you always want to use them for something else later, put them in the shed and end up using said box to light the barbecue with seven months later.

So what's this all about?  Why must my clementine or lemon have leaves now and not all year?  I can't pluck up the courage to ask one of the grocers in town, I mean it wouldn't be right, I can just imagine the look on his face.

'Eh?'
'Leaves on lemons.  Why now?
'Not with you mate...'
'Why do you sell lemons with leaves on now and not in June..?'
'Can't say I ever thought about it...'
'It's just that it makes no sense, so I wa.....'
'Neither do you mate.'

And off he goes to rearrange his roast chestnut display, which you also only get right now, before alerting the authorities about some bloke who clearly needs professional support and is there any specific help available for lemon obsessives.

Waxed, unwaxed?  Don't ask me I've no idea.

Market forces

It's infiltrated the three-times-a-week market in town too.  They've caught on.  I had a quick look today.

'Yer Granny Smiths a paarrnd.   Yer tomarrtas a paarrrnd.  Yer mushrooms a paarrnd.  Yer lemons and clemetines with leaves on a paaarnd a paarrnd....'

Or whatever.  Last year I fell for it and bought a box.  More clementines than I knew what to do with.

They 're probably sold like that in certain supermarkets too, just not the ones I go to.  There is a particular brand of supermarket that's 25 miles away from here, that doesn't normally cater for my sort.  I needed polenta a few months back in its grain form and could only buy blocks here.  As I happened to be (sort  of) passing that supermarket at the time, I popped in because it was inevitable it would be sold there.  Can't remember when I felt less comfortable.  The mummies in there all had sunglasses perched on top of their heads and had children called Magnolia, Apple White or something, and there was certain sort of more mature lady who bypassed metal shopping trolleys and held firmly to her wicker basket.

Takes no prisoners.  The PChef citrus press.
Juice to the max.

The staff looked sideways at me and seriously considered whether I ought to have a DNA swab to see if I was a suitable customer.  As it happens I found the polenta by the hand knitted pasta and left before there was an incident.

Maximum squeeze from a citrus press

Anyway, the sort-of point to all this is that I seem to get through an awful lot of lemons, for one reason or another, so I suppose that's why I notice these foliage situations.

I won't drone on about zesting anymore.  Done that, been there.  But I've a new friend in town.  The citrus press.  You see, after watching endless TV food programmes, I'm used to the idea of squeezing a lemon with one hand into the other, catching the pips.  We have got a plastic roundish, spiky thing that sits over a container which you twist your lemon into.  Useless.

But I've just taken delivery of a PChef citrus press as in the pic above.  Basically a half lemon shaped
cup, as you can see, in metal. Good Lord.  This boy takes no prisoners.  This is the Marines of citrus presses, the undercover Seals Unit.  Punch its solar plexus and you'd be the one with a sore fist.

Half fruits are turned inside out before your eyes.  Inside out.  The end result rind, skin, whatever, is drier than a wash at full spin.  There's nothing left. I've never seen such viscous juicing in a domestic setting.

I have a cooking show booked in December with a host who is also into her lemons.  She squeezes and turns the fruit - get this - inside out with her thumbs.  Now that's serious.  A woman with thumbs that can inflict that sort of injury isn't to be trifled with. I'll have to behave myself.

All lemon-ed up. Ciao for now

So now I'm fully equipped with my ever-present zester that never leaves my side and my Jackie Chan of a juicer, I'm urged to move into the big league of home-made mincemeat and - wait for this, a bright idea from my wife last night - home-made lemoncello.

'Let's get some vodka at the weekend....it's dead easy, apparently...'  Says she with enough home-made sloe gin and sloe vodka fermenting for Christmas to kill several armies.

Lemoncello.  Really?  Me?  Mind you, if word got out that I was into that kind of thing, maybe I could go to whatever supermarket I chose.  Even pop into a cafe there, if they have such things, I have no idea, and buy a skinny something or other and bird seed drizzle muffin.

Ciao bella.  Oh Dear.

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