Lime-life

It all started with three fateful words, texted to me by my friend, Janet. (That’s Janet, of butt blowdrying fame to any who have been reading for a while…) Anyway, back to the text:

Key. Lime. Pie.

From the moment I read the words on the screen of my iphone, I knew. I would be making a key lime pie.

To set the scene for you, about a week ago someone gave an industrial size bottle of key lime juice to my husband, the chef. I was thrilled. Overjoyed. I have a thing for key limes.

Just try. Try to think of something that doesn’t benefit from a twist of lime. I know! You can’t!!

Is that KEY LIME in those glasses?

Then over the weekend while walking through Walmart minding my own business, I happened to pass a sale on bags of adorable little key limes. What good fortune! Those would go perfectly with everything I intended to mix with my lime juice. So I bought them, of course, and some coconut vodka just in case.

Can I just tell ya’ll that limes are totally one of my favorite things God makes? I just love ’em.

So I’ve used my juice over the last few days to paint a lime-ey ribbon through cocktails, homemade salsa, water, and tea and fed these lime laced labors of love to anyone who put their feet under our table.

And then of all things, Janet texts me about a key lime pie she was having and, not one to be outdone, I knew it was time for the pie. At first I got out my favorite cookbook, going for a “busy days pie” using ready made crust, whipped cream, condensed milk, and lime juice. Then I realized I had no ready made crust on hand, neither did I have whipped cream. A younger, sillier me would have given up, but nah…

I simply made my own graham cracker crust! It was easy! I have a three-year-old, so graham crackers are a given.

Then I went for a recipe I found here, and it too was easy. PLUS it still called for condensed milk and who doesn’t love that stuff?? I may or may not have dumped a little lime juice in the bottom of the can after I poured most of its contents into the mixing bowl and eaten the lime juice and leftover condensed milk with a spoon. What? You know you’d do it too!

Anyway, I also didn’t have whipped cream, but I DID have whipping cream. (There’s a difference.) So after I picked up my Mackenzie from youth group and while my darling little pie was cooling in the fridge, the whipping cream lived its dream… fulfilled its destiny… it got whipped.

Mama's piece of pie

So now I sit, alone, all others in the house slumbering peacefully. But I made a pie. And I ate the first piece. You know, out of good will toward the rest of the pie eaters that may come along, I willingly took the always-misshapen, difficult-to-cut first piece upon myself. Don’t tell, but it wasn’t misshapen at all. It cut like a perfect custard pie with all the preservatives in the world. You’d never know it was haphazardly homemade by a silly girl who is lime-crazy.

Limes, especially ones of the key variety, remind me of Florida. They have their roots, their history in Florida and so do I. I love a bunch of people in Florida so limes make me cry in a happy/sad/lovely sort of way. (What? You don’t cry over fruit that reminds you of people you love? Then I won’t mention the various levels of emotional breakdown I have over green beans, corn, home canned tomatoes or fresh navel oranges.) So I can’t have Florida (you know, the people I love that live there) but I CAN put key limes in everything possible and know that the salsa on my chip, the wedge in my tea, or the pie on my plate is smiling back at me, reflecting a little bit of who I am.

I love limes, ya’ll. And pie. And my mama and daddy. Lime Life is good.