My blood lime, a hybrid native finger lime, is a prolific fruiter covered in orange oval-shaped balls of lime-flavoured citrus caviar.
The fruit retails for around $1000 a kilo, meaning if I want to use it all year round, it must be stored somehow.
In the past, a whole day was spent picking the individual caviar granules out of the fruit, making a blood lime jelly and then drying the remaining skins.
Due to the size of the caviar granules and the amount that needed to be preserved, my hands cramped in pain by the end of that day.
Nowadays, the fruit is just stored, cut in half and covered with sugar in a No. 31 Vacola jar.
The jar usually sits on the side bench, being topped up whenever extra blood limes have been picked and no-one is going to eat them.
At this time of the year, the blood lime has flowered and is covered with centimetre-sized fruit, which is nowhere near ready to eat.
On Sunday, seven people came for lunch, which required seven blood limes to be squeezed on top of the white peach palate cleanser.
And that jar of blood limes was going to come in handy.
I’d just need to find it.
There isn’t just one No. 31 Vacola jar with something stored in it on the side bench; there are ones with garlic flowers, strawberries soaking in last year’s liquor, homemade mulberry mead, and many other food experiments that might one day be needed.
It wasn’t there, so where is my jar?
Opening the Vacola jar cupboard, there are 86 No. 31s, 64 No. 27s, 37 No. 20s and a couple of 14s all empty, ready for this season of preserving, but no jar of blood limes.
As the Vacola jar cupboard is full, the bookshelf, the official Vacola jar overflow, is also completely packed with No. 65s, No. 31s, some even in amber, No. 27s and the No. 36s that may never get used, but still no jar No. 31 of blood limes.
Next to the microwave, where the Vacola jars that don’t fit in the cupboard or bookshelf end up after coming out of the dishwasher, there is no jar of blood limes there either.
Maybe they had been taken to the food studio and used for lunch.
It wasn’t on the shelves above the cook top or the wall of preserves.
The next stop was the storeroom, where 37 No. 31 jars of last year's blood plums were still on the shelves, but why would it be there?
I’m going to check anyway, just in case.
This No. 31 Vacola jar was nowhere to be found, so a lap of everywhere was done again, just in case it was overlooked, put in a safe place and forgotten where.
This No. 31 Vacola jar of blood limes has to be somewhere.
When the other half came in, he also did a lap looking for it.
Then, after counting all the Vacola jars and opening all the cupboards, the image of where the No. 31 Vacola jar with blood limes in it popped into my head.
It went in the pot of marmalade when cleaning out the freezer to prepare for this year’s harvest.
At least now we all know how many Vacola jars are in the cupboard (and on the bookcase, on the bench, and in the storeroom) before this year's preserving season starts.
Got a creative cooking idea or a garden-fresh recipe for Jaci to cook? Share your culinary inspirations at jaci.hicken@mmg.com.au
