lemonade in wintertime ramblings

 

No this is not about the saying "When life gives you lemons{....put them in the freezer until they are hard and throw them at people...}make lemonade."   I bought a very nifty truck in1976 and my new keys came attached to a huge plastic disk, that advised me to make lemonade, all things considered that was chilling, but when I finally sold that truck in 1995, the person who bought it rebuilt it and used it for several more years. So may-be not so much.

 

What I was really thinking about was the house my great Aunt Mime {my-me} lived it, it has stood empty for easily 35 years.   But one warm summer afternoon when I was may-be 5  we all piled into the Buick, with our selection of covered dishes to traveled there for a family reunion.  I watched her make lemonade at the dry sink in her kitchen,  there was a pump in the large grey steel sink on the other side of the kitchen.  And there was a large pump out in the yard which I  later followed her out to , I was given the "chore" of carrying small pail of water to  prime the huge old red  pump with it's fresh coat of red apint.  Then we took turns pumping until a large galvanized tub was filled with water, this she explained was so that the men could wash their hands without coming inside and tracking up the kitchen floor, or getting in her way while she was cooking.  Probably where my fondness for lemonade started,  I like limeade also.

 

Lemonade is a treat, I mean real hand squeezed, with the pulp and occasional  seed.

A beverage to be sipped and relished, no matter what the season. I have tried frozen concentrate, and lemonade in cartons, even Countrytime Lemonade Drink Mix,  love their commercials, especially the one about summertime being one day longer one year.   You can even buy a lemonade soda of sorts made by Lipton.  Sounds like I have  been sampling and searching for the perfect lemonade. 

 For years, decades even there has been a simple old fashioned juicer on the top shelf in the kitchen, next to the fruitcake pan and an octagonal pan embossed with Swans Down Cake Flour, may-be all of these items have been here since we bought the house,  I that was awhile ago and I can't remember.  

 

Every now and then, the juicer gets trotted out and put to work.    Carefully washed lemons get to go for a ride in the microwave, because this is said to produce more juice.  I was recently told that rolling them on the counter would do the same, so I rolled one on the counter, then another, and the third one popped.  Note to self "learn to be gentle with lemons, or go back to the microwave method".  At this time i have no opinion as to which is the better method.  Pulp in lemonade is a part of the fun, seeds are also fun to spit out, lemons smell awesome and they are a cheerful sunny color, all of that makes them pretty much perfect to me.