Last week, at Cookbook in Echo Park, I spied this bowl of pink lemons. I overheard the woman working there explaining them to another customer; something about a fungus or a disease that turns them pink. (I assume this fungus or disease isn’t deadly.)
I didn’t go into the store with the intention of buying pink lemons–I didn’t even know pink lemons existed–but I decided to buy one and to bring it home. Maybe it would make a nice garnish for a fruity cocktail? Maybe next time I could buy 8 or 9 and make a batch of naturally pink pink lemonade? I wouldn’t know until I cut into it, which I promptly did the next day.
Hope you aren’t too excited to see the results… they’re pretty disappointing:
If you look very carefully at the bottom of each lemon half, you’ll see the merest whisper of pink. Perhaps if these lemons had been more deeply infected with pink lemon disease, they’d be pinker than a float at the gay pride parade. As they are, they seem to be infected with lemons-that-look-like-limes disease, a very different disease, and not nearly as exciting.
In conclusion: buying pink lemons is like being pregnant and having the doctor tell you you’re having a girl and then out comes a boy. At the end of the day, you have a baby and you have a lemon. And that’s not so bad after all.