Despite our pact to not grocery shop for a month, one of the reasons we walked toward Blackwattle Bay yesterday was to possibly hit up the supermarket for a lime which we’d forgotten to include on the extensive shopping list.
A little while into the walk I realised that the supermarket was unlikely to be open because it was Good Friday – one of the only two days of the year where pretty much nothing is open.
I’d resigned myself to using a lemon when there on the footpath was a citrus tree! A tree absolutely laden with what appeared to be limes. I sniffed them to make sure and grabbed one** because I figured The Universe was rewarding me for the walk, and encouraging me to stick to the monthly shop.
I started second-guessing the limeness when we got home. It certainly looked like a lime and smelled very citrusy if not entirely limey. Definitely not an orange or a lemon, so surely must be a lime.
After cutting it open this evening I was much less convinced it was a lime, the pulp just didn’t seem quite right, though the smell was almost there. Perhaps a very sharp unripe mandarin or tangerine?
Nonetheless, whatever it was did the job and Don’s guacamole was excellent, so hopefully we won’t become hideously unwell overnight from not-lime poisoning.
I really should 1. learn when stuff is in season; 2. return to the tree in several weeks to see what the fruit becomes.
xxx
** located on public property so I think all good and I won’t face imprisonment or transportation for lime theft.
Wikipedia lists 8 different types of Australian limes, and that’s before getting into other cultivars and hybrids. It may be a lime, just a different sort than what the supermarket has.
Oh! Excellent point – and I’d not be at all surprised if the limes at the Fruit & Veg were imported from some exotic tropical land.