When life gives you lemons…

I had been eyeing up this lemon tree since we got here. It was covered with plastic for the winter months but I could see lemons in there peeking through.

We use lemons a lot, they are a staple every week on our grocery list. I would love to have a lemon tree. I finally got the nerve to ask Françoise if I could have one or two. This is what she brought me.

A giant bowl full of extra fresh, extra juicy lemons with thin rinds that are easy to squeeze and easy to zest. Not the thick peeled ones we buy at Superstore back home that only Arnold Schwarzenegger could squeeze. So what did we do with all these lemons (other than lemon rosemary chicken, squeeze on delicious cauliflower or broccoli and add to salad dressings)? We made homemade lemonade of course!

A bowl of lemons wasn’t the only thing Françoise was kind enough to give us. Around here, the animal to hunt is ‘le sanglier’ which translates to wild boar. Her son hunts them every weekend (during the hunting season) and I think he shot 3 of them this year. Wild boar is to this area what deer is to Saskatchewan. I guess the last few years there have been way too many sangliers and they are ruining some vineyards. It is not a good idea to mess with wine producing in France. About a month ago, Françoise brought us some ‘sanglier’ stew to try. It was delicious! Even I ate it, and I’m sometimes/almost/practically a vegetarian. Nothing political or environmental, I just don’t really like meat that much.

Since it’s something we don’t typically have in Canada, we thought it would be nice to make a wild boar stew for Shamus’ parents, Bob and Helene. I asked Françoise if she had some extra and this is what she brought us. No wonder she was adamant that I needed a full day for it to thaw!

For those who know me, I don’t deal with raw meat very well at all. I certainly have never butchered anything in my life, and sometimes I even let out little high pitched screams of ‘grossmetheeffout’ when I’m cutting the white stringy stuff off of boneless skinless chicken breasts. This thing had a ball joint and socket.

Lucky for me Shamus got very excited at the prospect of dealing with the beast (definitely some evolutionary psychology behind that) and that Bob came back a day early from his trip to Switzerland. They were both very happy (as was I) to take over. I was delegated to buying wine for the bourguignon (before, during and after). Look what I found! Too perfect!