para el gloria de jugo del limon

Yesterday I must have juiced about 500 limes. I'm sporting one of those invisible but painful bruises in the middle of my right palm from using the manual fruit press and the cut on my pinky is painfully clean.

Almost everyday the casa recieves the produce leftovers that a nearby grocery can no longer cell for cheap. Some of the kids have the chore of dividing up the rotten goods from the usable, or carrying the bad stuff to the goats, carrying the good stuff to the kitchen, etc. Lucero and Nadia are in charge of juicing the limes. Sometimes there is a large amount of limes, other days the pickins are slim. Yesterday we were given three large produce baskets overflowing with hundreds of them. Lucky for the casa, the skin of a lime yellows and discolors before the fruit spoils. Because of the discoloration, consumers don't spend their money on them, and the store can't sell perfectly good produce.

The limes have to be squeezed on the day they arrive or else the numbers dwindle. Most of the juice will eventually be watered down and used for drinking. Agua de limon is my favorite juice here, so I have no problem helping the girls with their task.

I think my avid enthusiasm for lemon and lime comes from my mom. When I was a kid we went to ball games. My mom would always get an italian ice. 'It's my one indulgence' she told us. She didn't lie, either. My mother has never taken to the available frills in life. She'd share a few spoonfuls with me so I could enjoy the sweet and sour, puckery taste of the lemon.

Five large pitchers of pure lime juice later me and my trabajadoras looked at the basket that fit all of the squeezed limes, piled onto each other. I couldn't help but think of the Holocaust. Then I mentally scolded myself.