One of the really lovely things about having a garden is watching my fruit trees grow from bud to flower to fruit. While it sounds almost hackneyed to confess this, I get excited and even awe inspired when ripe fruit finally dangles down among the leaves. Ask anybody who has done it-there is nothing like picking fruit from your very own tree.
Here in Israel winter time means that the lemons are ready. After patiently watching my own tree go from “lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flowers so sweet,” to quote the old Harry Belafonte song,this week it was time to pick “the fruit of the poor lemon,” which sings Harry, is “impossible to eat.” But Belafonte forgot the lemon’s best friends- sugar and oranges. Orange lemonade is so easy to make that it could hardly be called a recipe but it’s wonderful, tart, sweet, mild, refreshing and oh so bright. Of course it’s full of vitamin C and kids love it It’s also the perfect pick me up for breakfast or after fasting.
Tomorrow is the 10th of Tevet, the anniversary of the day the Roman’s breached the walls of Jerusalem and Jews throughout the world remember this disaster which was a prelude to the Temple’s destruction, by abstaining from food and liquid. Fasting literally takes you out of your life-it is quite amazing to realize just how ragged one can feel after one has missed a meal, or two or three. How vulnerable we humans are, but that is the point, for us to leave our egos and realize that we live on G-ds mercy.
Starting around 5 am and ending 12 hours later, the 10th of Tevet is considered to be the “easiest” of fasts. Certainly it’s easier that Yom Kippur or Tisha B’Av which go on for 25 hours, but it isn’t easy and as if the case with all fasts, deciding what to eat once the fast is over is a challenge. A weary post fast stomach isn’t up for meat or fowl or even cheese. What fasters want is something sweet, a pick me up to replenish the stores of energy that the fast emptied dry. Orange lemonade does this amazingly well and it’s a natural constipation cure (fasting is inimical to bowel movement) , far tastier and easier on the insides than prune juice. Two or three cups will get the system into gear again.
Just one warning-citrus juices strip tooth enamel so drink sparingly or use a straw
2 lemons and 2 oranges squeezed out for juice. The best ones come from your own trees.
1 and 1/4 cups of sugar (or to taste)
8 cups water
Combine everything into large pitcher and refrigerate. Delicious