Weekend Edition: When life gives you lemons...

+ a Garlic Lemon Shrimp Risotto recipe

When life gives you lemons… lots of lemons… make a variety of yummy goodness not just lemonade.

The house my parents recently purchased in the outskirts of the city, of which my hubby and I are now the caretakers, has a lot of fruit trees. Five of the 20 some fruit trees on the property are very prolific citrus trees.

As a young girl growing up in the Oregon country-side, we had a fair amount of fruit trees on our property: apples, pears, cherries, plums… but no citrus. Citrus trees have always felt exotic to me, even after having lived in Barcelona for three years as a kid. Orange and lemon trees were there, sure, but they weren’t something that was in our garden. I distinctly remember walking by courtyards of oranges and lemons in the windy, narrow streets of the Gothic neighborhood in Barcelona thinking how absolutely otherworldly it felt. The scent of the warm citrus on hot days… heaven.

And now? I have citrus–five of them–in my garden. Two lemon trees. Two orange trees. And one mandarine tree.

It’s quite the delightful feeling to be able to open up the front door, take 10 steps and pick oranges to squeeze for a breakfast juice. Or to pick lemons to easily zest for a light, lemon infusion as a little pick me up. 

And boy do we have lemons.

So many lemons. 

We’ve been gifting bags of them to friends, because there is no way we can use them all. 

I’ve also taken to experimenting with lots of different recipes with lemon. Savory, sweet, zesty… you name it, I’m playing with it.

A Little About Lemons

According to Ayurveda, the natural system of medicine that came from India and Yoga’s sister science, the sour flavors of lemons and other citrus fruits can have both a balancing and calming effect on our nervous system. Consuming lemon can improve taste and digestion while also aid regular elimination.

In recent years there have also been some fascinating studies that have shown other benefits from consuming lemons. A 2019 Japanese study published in Scientific Reports found that lemon polyphenols could potentially promote robust aging, increased longevity, and contribute to a richer diversity in the microbiome. In the study, the team gave lemon polyphenol (a water-soluble antioxidant found in lemon peel) rich water to one group of mice throughout their lifetime and studied them in a non-invasive way to see how drinking the lemon water would affect them. What they found was the mice administered with lemon polyphenols exhibited notable lifespan extension, enhanced cognitive abilities, improved locomotion and healthier and more diverse gut microbiome in comparison to the control group of mice.

In the study’s conclusion, they mentioned something that I think is a really good point to make: it’s important to observe the food intake both humans and animals have over their lifetime because, “food habits may exert a large influence on the host.” It’s a good reminder that everything we consume impacts us in more ways than we often realize.

Garlic Lemon Shrimp Risotto