I have never seen Meyer lemons in Edmonton. Traditionally a west coast fruit, Mike tells me they are very prevalent in southern California. Even in Vancouver at Granville market, we saw a stall selling them. I even bought a few to bring home, and Mike made an excellent lemon risotto with them.
Meyers are sweeter, less bitter and a bit more like oranges than lemons. Indeed, they are thought to be a hybridization of mandarin oranges and traditional lemons. They are a bit smaller than regular lemons, and their rind is a lot thinner.
Their sweeter, lighter flavour is better suited to baking; lemon tarts, lemon loaves and lemon dashed cookies, perhaps. Because I’m not sure when I’ll ever see them around these parts again, I bought a bag to squeeze the juice of out and freeze for later use. Perhaps lemon macarons.
Meyer lemons: $3.99 for a bag of 7 or so from Sobeys Urban Fresh. I got about 3/4 of a cup of juice from them, and they squeezed a lot easier than I thought they would (I once struggled with juicing tiny key limes for dessert bars.) I did let them sit for a few days, and warmed them up before squeezing in the microwave for a few seconds. This helps to coax any last drops of liquid from them.
I saved one lemon to enjoy with a San Pellegrino water. Although you can’t see it, I drank it out of a frosted monogrammed glass. My parents were going to get rid of some glasses engraved with the letter “Z”. I promptly rescued them and sip scotch or soda water out of them from time to time.
Another bonus to Meyer lemons:
…they make pleasant hats for kitchen frogs.
To learn more about the original lemon party, and to get free recipes for meyer lemons, please visit our website, http://www.lemonparty.org (ed note: friends, someone caught my reference in my title, but this link is not work safe. thx)
Thank you,
GWM