As a young lemon, this little pip-squeak grew up believing his origins must have bean from The Banana Republic. What other explanation could there be for his distorted shape?

Day after day, he baked himself under the Sicilian sun, in the fresh air, fantasizing about his family history. His fertile imagination running wild & rampant.

Was his personality also a bit warped & kinky to match his bent body? Decide for yourself!

Dad – stemming from a bunch of banana smoothies, only to split later in life. A man of the world. Comfortable in his own skin. A banana spreading the word. Well bread, more refined & sublime than any other banana bread. Always knowing, ‘on which side his bread was buttered’.

A fine specimen of his class. In peak physical form – lean, upright, straight. Officially ranked extra large due to “a length greater than nine inches”. (not my words) No small fry.
Never labelled a lady finger or dwarf banana. Definitely no shortbread.

The pick of the crop.

Landing a leading banana roll in ‘Bananas in Pyjamas’, increasing his worldwide exposure.

‘I scream, you scream, we all scream for banana ice-cream’ made him an instant hit.

Worked like a banana treat. No slipping on a banana skin on his watch. A bundle of energy. Always cooking up new ideas. A mover and shaker. At the top of his tree. With the world at his finger-tip.

Being handed the title of ‘Finger Lickin’ Good’ at the ‘Finger Food Fare.’ Scooping the ‘Baker’s Delight’ award at the ‘Bun In The Oven Bake-off’. (making some very hot cross buns) Running in first at the ‘Fast Food Festival’. Scoffing the junk foods.

Loafing around in his own sweet time (for this Banana, Sundaes) on his banana lounge, in the raw, sipping banana daiquiris, jamming to the beet of Harry Belafonte’s ‘Banana Boat Song’. Basting his delicate pale flesh with suncream. (Banana Boat brand naturally) Never burning. Turning as golden as syrup. Never becoming a dried fruit. Making a tempting, enticing and irresistible caramelized banana. With a light treacle tan he’d never be called pastie.

Combining nicely with a cross section of other cross-cut fruits to make the perfect, fresh fruit salad. Having all the natural ingredients to blend well with others, like banana milkshakes. No messing around with this banana trifle or taking it lightly. Making a thin but very satisfying banana crepe.

In a cluster, was laid-back and chilled. i.e. froze well in the fridge with friends.

Mixing well with Anna Pavlova to form a sweet and close working relationship. Naturally, he was always on top… along with the punnet of strawberries, kiwi fruit, mangoes and thickened cream. Never one to mock fresh cream. No clot, but could easily digest the richness of clotted cream. Was the crème de la banana cream.

As wholesome and nutritious as a skim milk banana yoghurt. Virtually fat free.

Thrifty. Not a banana to fritter away his dough. Generous. “hey, pour much more rum on those flaming bananas, please.” Polite too. Made a very humble banana crumble, but not too stuffy to eat humble pie. Never one to spit banana chips. Tolerated well by all ages, fulfilling and sustaining their needs. Not one to point the finger. Always at hand.

Hands down. Had a finger in every banana cream pie, but did not have ‘sticky fingers’ – was ‘as honest as the day was long’. A banana finger with‘the Midas touch, this Mister, Goldfinger’. There was muffin’ this banana longed for. Had the lot – healthy, wealthy, and size!

Mum – from cultivated origins, with a lush, lemon lineage. An unblemished history and valued for her versatility, variability, usability, durability, sustainability, availability, satiability, extractability. Yadda, yadda, yadda…

A good sort with many worthy and Tip Top attributes. Setting the lemon bar to a new high. Top-notch, high- class, world –class, delicate, exquisite, exotic, rich, heavenly, tasteful, sumptuous. You name it and she was probably it. Lemon Margarita. For starters!

A tantalizing fruit, made to tickle & titillate. Becoming a famous lemon sherbet (no, not one of those Sherbets, silly sausage!). Hitting the highlights as one of The Fab Four, better known as The Fruit Tingles. (Lemon, Lime, Orange & Raspberry) Doing solo gigs as sorbetto al limone, lemon sorbet or lemon granita.

Nothing artificial about this one. Well preserved. In essence, a real bottler. Not your average bit of lemon fluff. Tea’d up sweetly with honey. Best friends with ginger. Dressing well, always having great taste. A very cordial lemon.

A lemon using her colour to decorate the world. Her unique palette proving to be pretty pleasing.

Taking the cake! A sumptuous, lemon cake. But being too pure and too goody-goody to eat it.

Both culturally diverse, having friends in high places, scoring a reputation as great mixers. Mix Masters. Scraping in as Toast Masters. Meating over drinks and nibbles, his dad found his mum’s sweet fragrance, fresh & natural appearance, flawless skin, and perfectly well-rounded shape very appeeling. Had never seen a lemon twist quite like that before. Could not resist such a lemon kiss! Went totally bananas and did a complete banana flip over his “luscious little lululemon”.

Just like Brian Berry, he became ‘a slave to love’. Just like Robert Palmtree he was ‘addicted to love’, and using the words of Herb Alpine “this guy’s in love with you”. Who could ever forget ‘can’t help falling in love with you’ by Elvis, what’s his name, oh yeah, Elvis Parsley.

He knew how to make a berry good lemon blush. His piece de resistance “Hey, Blossom, want to Thai some of my banana salad”. What a banana surprise – saucy & spicy, a bit of hot stuff! Who wouldn’t be tempted by a tangy Thai banana blossom salad like this dish.

She was attracted to his firmness, but knew inside he was a bit mushy and full of goodness. He had a soft heart, a heart of gold. Just ripe!

The fact that he was officially-ranked extra large did stir her juices, but hay, she was only human after all. She whisked herself into thick lemon whipped cream. Worked herself into a lather like any worthy lemon soap. Naturally, she went into a complete lemon fetish over him, her “yummy, yum, yum”. Her first true love. Her big boy. Her banana dreamboat. Sounds corny, but he made her feel so gooey inside. Deep down, she was bit of a passion fruit. There were moments when she thought she was melting. When apart, she longed for him and ‘hungered for his touch.’ Righteously so, brothers!

He treated her like a Queen. “What’s this crazy little thing called, love? ” she asked him one day. It was love at first bite for both of them.

Meanwhile, as this little lemon squirt matured, he ‘heard through the grapevine’ (growing in the Malvasia vineyards close by at Malfa) a juicy little morsel, that his real roots were in fact right here, at home, on the Aeolian island of Salina.

Talk about sour grapes. Any ‘grape expectations’ were squashed. Fruitless.

Rumours about his family tree were sprouting up and spreading as easily as lemon butter. Just a little taste of things to come. Barbed, biting and stinging words like :-

His dad “Was nothing more than a useless lay-about. A real lemon. A lemon drop kick. Had no lemon balls. Had turned rotten. Had fallen by the wayside. Was bland and insipid. Was bound to come a cropper. Had lost the plot. Lost his grip. Had no moral fibre. A real Sicilian lemon dipstick. Floundering with no lemon sole. Often totally hung over. A lemon fool. Grubby. Seedy. Had gross and disgusting eating habits – masticating like that in public. Far from Manly – had virtually no stamena”.

His mum “Had none of the class to make her rise as a lemon Chiffon cake or make the cut as lemon meringue pie. She was basically just a common lemon tart, past her use-by date. Tasteless and unpalatable. As a lemon soufflé, a flop. As a lemon pudding, stodgy. Plain. Average. Pie faced. Over ripe. Dried out. Badly sun-damaged & weathered skin, with black spots & pock marks. Droopy & saggy. Bit of a fruitcake. A real fruit loop. A natural disaster. A hard old lemon sponge. Upper crust – never. A lemon happy to stew in her own juice. All burnt out. Congealed. Left on the shelf.”

Quite plainly most people were totally discustard by her. Including Peter, Paul & Mary who wrapped up their distaste for her in their music- ‘the fruit of this poor lemon is impossible to eat’.

Not a lot going in her flavour, to say the yeast!

He felt as flat as a lemon pancake with this revelation.

Pithed off with all these cutting & grating words he became thick skinned & bitter (as well as more twisted!) He hung around on his own, losing his zest for life. Hopes of a blooming future were pitted.

Was his lot in life to end up as a lemon cough lozenge. A boring boiled lemon lolly. Finish as a Finish lemon scented dish-washing tablet.

Find himself deep in a lemon pooh-cake. A last minute addition to a cheap chew and spew?

Relationships with his buddies began to curdle. They’d had a gut full of him waffling on ad nauseam (like some sort of banana). He heard their caustic remarks :- “Schweppes! that’s one very bitter lemon. He’s losing his fizz. He kneads some sort of lemon tonic. He’s not very well grounded. He’s a boring lemon square. He must be going through some sort of misshapen identity crisis. His zing really has zung. He’s getting far too big for his roots. Sad to see a lemon dribble on like that. He’ll come to a sticky end. He’ll find himself on the scrap heap. Can’t even attract the fruit flies. He’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic. A pea brain”.

Their words were hard to swallow.

He took on a real lemon glaze, almost frosted.

He’d got himself into a real lemon pickle.

He’d put himself out on a limb, distancing himself from the neighbours. Making himself ripe for the picking. “Wow” he thought (admiring the nice view he had snagged out on the limb) “the lemongrass really is greener on the other side of the fence”.

One day he got a real lemon surprise. He was ambushed and callously manhandled by a man with calloused hands.

He froze like a lemon icy pole , but this proved fruitless. He was soon reduced to lemon juice.

Insprite of his appeels “Hava Heart”, “hay, handle with care”, “leaf me alone”, “help, reap” “pick on someone your own size”, “a salt, a salt” he was snipped of his identity and mercilessly tossed aside. Another quick & easy take-away.

“Well, pluck you too!” was his sharp & searing response to this braisen act. He felt as if he’d bean sliced to the core. Started quivering like lemon jelly. How would it all pan out?

He was well and truly skewed. Totally stuffed.

“I’m in a real jam now” he thought sourly to himself. He saw red (must have been raspberry jam) even though he was only with his yellow, fellow lemons. All losers. All lemons. All poor saps. All lumped together in one big, gluggy mess.

Then suddenly, as if by some divine lemon intervention, he had an epiphany. There was ‘the sound of music’, perhaps the limoncello. Also bit of a sing-song, lemon icing, which was light and airy. Did he imagine that he’d just heard John Lemon? Maybe The Kinks! Lemon pop had always been one of his faves.

“I’ve bean bitter and twisted for most of my life. “Now it’s thyme to suck it up, go straight and turn over a new leaf “ were the words churning and turning through his head. So too were the words lemon turnover. He was starving. He could hear a little tune piping up – ‘to everything there is a season, turn, turn ,turn’. More likely though, he was just turning nuts.

He started spurting out sweet, syrupy lemon drizzle, being uplifted, exhilarated, energized, motivated, revitalized, rejuvenated (think you get my Drifter) by his new, refreshing and healthy slant on life. All thanks to this out of the world and heavenly inspiration, with a hint of ‘amazing grace’ wafting in the background.

Suddenly being different didn’t matter. Instead, it worked in his flavor. There was mass lemon whirl and whizz as the other lemons wedged closer to him seeking his comfort, rindness and pithy. The lemons relished all this tenderness and hung off his every word. There was a sprinkle of hope. A trickle of joyful tears. A sense of calm was spreading. Talk about being ‘mellow yellow’.

There was a gushing of lemon delight & lemon bliss. (almost sickening!)

After giving all his fellow lemons a good squeeze, he blossomed to fame by making a juicy little income (or perhaps a real killing) in the field of lemon aid!

He became as rich as a lemon layer cake with lemon cream cheese buttercream. His dizzy rise to stardom was just the Cherry (Ripe) on the top of the lemon torte. Sometimes, he thought, it really does pay to be different in this world. Snicker, Snicker! He was rapidly raking in the Star Bucks.

With a little squeeze of a lemon, the world was now his oyster.

Ending on bit of a sweet and sour note, he had also gained piece of mind. Finally the truth about his real stock had leaked out when all the poor lemons were packed together, lamenting in lemon lockdown. Seems his mum, whilst hanging around with this lemon, (he thought must be his dad) had had a one night stand with one of the local prickly pears on the island.

Fruit! Was she off her nana, only half-baked, going stir crazy, out to lunch, going round the twist, crackers, out of her tree, off her scone, a little cookie, or just missing a few screws….in the head?

What a recipe for disaster! A complete fiasco.

This casanova cactus was mature, yellow, well hung, with a grate set of paddles, but OMG, talk about being thick, with thorns (ouch). It’enough to bring tears to your eyes. Worse than any extra strong sweet and sour chilly sauce.

He had led her blindly up & down the garden path with promises of a golden and fruitful future together. All a load of garbage. Rot. Trash. Nothing but tripe. Fudge. Toffee. Applesauce. Humbug. Flummery. Cod.

She was immature and had been completely sucked in by his sweet-talk and ravished by his rough & rugged appearance. Love is blind. Seems there’s no accounting for taste.

Scottish band Nazareth summed it up with their (very painful) words ‘ love hurts, love wounds and marks’. She had the scars to prove it. ‘The proof was in the pudding.’

He saw red… again, but this thyme it was only a quick flash. A camera crew were taking some lemon drop shots now that he was a hotshot and had developed a craving for the limelight.

So this was his biological father. We’ve all heard of a banana paddle pop, but a cactus paddle pop?

This spineless, heartless, pretentious little prick (well, he was a cactus and barely scraping in at four inches) had not only hoodwinked (or some may even say graped) his mother, but had also cruelly desserted him as a baby bud. A real low life (let’s face it, four inches is pretty pathetic, isn’t it). He’d surely get his just desserts and end up in a real prickly pear jam. He’d be cactus!

At long last, his thirst for the truth was satisfied.

On a much sweeter note, just like the song – ‘sugar, ah honey, honey, you are my candy girl’, he found true love. He was peared up on a blind date with a pretty little peach. As cute as pie. Warm and fuzzy. Bursting with sweet flavour. A complexion like… yep, peaches & cream. A peach parfait. She played hard to get, but was a stone fruit after all. A virgin peach Bellini. Not the clingy type. But naturally, she too, fell. He won her over. Then “rolled her over, in the clover. Then, did it again”. (not my words) The Irish can be so unsavoury at times, but talk about being full of fizz, spirit, sparkle, sprite, veuve, punch, bubbly, gusto & good cheer!

In the words of John Paul Young – “love is in the air”. That’s the famous singer John Paul Young, not to be mixed up with that other John Paul, the Polish bloke, better known as John Paul II. Strange surname. Never listened to hymn in a group, but heard he was a real crowd pleaser and had become a very big hit. Bless him.

Talk about big hits, their theme song, ‘Tutti Frutti’ sizzled to success. It sealed their future. Seems Little Richard not only had a passion for singing, but also for wining & dining. A record-breaking number of ritzy restaurants claimed to have Spotted Dick, pouring over their menu.

On a very high note, (like ‘dough, ray, me’) their fusion not only served to change the course of many foods and many a menu, but also increased the lemon’s richness by hundreds and thousands.

Now, you would be forgiven for thinking that our little lemon friend was a bit flaky. But don’t forget that he was Italian after all (and from the south!) where food freaks and those with a food fetish that borders on obsessive are considered normal. ‘Mamma Mia’, what she could cook up!

However, you would be quite right to say that this little lemon hadn’t really, “turned out perfectly”. To be fare, that’s rare. He did have his share of shortcomings, shortfalls and shortages.

Being totally blunt, a little crude and not mince words, his English really did suck big thyme. Also his taste in music was like four day old leftovers – bad, rotten, off and stunk.

For some of you, this story might be a bit like a lemon drivel cake –lacking substance, with no real sustenance, boring, bland and very sickly. For others, it’s just a load of bananas, not quite their cup of tea, perhaps even a bit on the tacky and disgusting side. Maybe for just a handful, it’s a tad naughty, but nice! Whatever. When it comes to the crunch, it really does all boil down to being a matter of taste.

Buon Appetito!

Baci,

Lushious Lib

Grateful thanks to an Apple named Mac (delicious, of course) for helping make this story come to fruition!

© Libby Lush
© www.libbylushphotography.com