There is something truly life affirming when you take care of a plant and it grows a flower or even fruit. My daughter (LaLa Lunchbox) and son-in-law (Jesse Hertzberg) gave me a lemon tree plant for Mothers Day. There were two lemons on it, hard and green. It took until now for the fruit to ripen. I did get some flowers and even a couple of baby lemons but they didn’t grow. Still — I had the original lemons and last week they were ready for using.

What to do with two lemons? I didn’t want to mix them with store bought lemons! So I made a half recipe of lemon ice cream using the juice and a bit of the zest. Then I scraped the skins and cut them into slim slices — will use them for chocolate dipped candied lemons!

No recipes for now because I haven’t tasted the ice cream and haven’t candied the lemon peels. But, will do if they’re good.

During stressful times, there’s a reminder that the world keeps moving, life goes on, some lovely, life-affirming things can make you happy. Like ripe homegrown lemons and ice cream and candy.