Squeezing Lemons in the Squeezer Thing

The season of squeezing lemons for lemonade is back again! Granted-these days all you have to do is go to the frozen food aisle, pick up some cans, bring them home, open them up, put the frozen concentrate in a pitcher, add water, stir, add ice if you want, and there you have it-Lemonade. You can purchase pink lemonade or limeade-even ice tea. Or-You can buy all those varieties packaged in a carton or glass container. No concentrate to bother with-it's ready to serve. Even the Paul Newman brand offers lemonade, limeade and ice tea.

But my favorite brand remains Homemade Lemonade. My grandmother made it as did my mother and aunts. They each had a favorite glass pitcher for lemonade that never came from a can or container. It came from slicing real, hold-in-your-hand lemons and squeezing the juice out by using a thick glass-lemon-squeezer thing. It was odd-shaped but it worked.That's what they all used. You'd hold on to it with one hand and with the other put a lemon half in place one-by-one. By moving the half lemon back and forth, around and around-out came the juice. After squeezing a few you'd dump the juice into the pitcher and repeat the process. You could leave the seeds or take them out. They knew how many lemons equaled how much water and sugar to add. I know they did because every single time they made their lemonade, it was as perfect as the time before. I don't remember a measuring cup being used. They just knew.

My mother sometimes added lime juice-after squeezing limes. She'd even slice a lemon and maybe a lime and place the slices on top of the freshly-made lemonade. Best part about that was sucking on the slices after they'd absorbed the lemonade while sitting in the refrigerator. On a hot, muggy summer day nothing tasted better than those naturally flavored slices Back then we never drank soda. We were lucky and didn't even know it- the adults never bought the stuff!

Of course, the finishing touch was a home-baked cookie or two and if you were outside enjoying the day with your lemonade and that cookie or two-life was absolutely-no questions asked-perfect!