March 13

The Americans are very keen on the aphorism “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade”

My British version is “If life gives you lemons, make lemon curd”

“Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat”

I decided the hard, green fruit would be fine in lemon curd as the sour lemon flavour has to fight its way through so much sugar.

I had to make it in three batches as I never know whether a recipe will double or treble and the final yield was a mere three jars. Problem is, it tastes so divine, we will have to battle hard not to spread it on everything!

Trisha and Amy, your jar will be handed over when we next get together.

I had a few rock hard lemons left over and was delighted to find a recipe for “candying” – “for use as snacks or cake decoration” the recipe said.. Well, let me tell you, you’d only snack on them or put them near a cake if you had a dentist in the family – preferably living in the same house, preferably in the same room. “The writer” is always very gallant about my culinary efforts but even he could only manage “Well the middle’s are very nice.” So the only thing they’ll be decorating is the bin.

Today, we met Trish, Tod and Peter in the park-purely by accident, of course- and, by a stroke of luck I happened to have with me their two jars of curd to hand over in exchange for yet more fabulous cheese straws and a nifty tube of hand-sanitiser and hand – cream combined. We chatted for half an hour in the biting wind and then had to concede defeat.

Since then, I’ve had an enthusiastic email from Amy and this from Tod:

I confess I’ve never thought of eating it on cake!