My salt and pepper is lemon

I can't help myself, I just need to have lemon.

In my kitchen, you can never have too much lemon. In my kitchen, lemon is King. I like the juice, I like the zest, i like the smell and I adore its brother Lime.

Of course, where would I be without sea salt, olive oil, cayenne pepper and Co., but the citric acid juices, just have a hold over me.

However, today I learned a very valuable lesson. No matter how much you love to cook with certain ingredients, you should always make sure to stock up on ingredients you are likely to use, even if not often, but at some point.

When grocery shopping for a dish you have in mind, you might fall in one of two nasty pitfalls:

a. You might forget an ingredient, because of it is so common, you forget you need to buy it to have it at home. For example, I forgot to buy sugar today. And I was making mousse!

b. You may very well remember you need an ingredient but the packaging is so big, when all you need is a teaspoon. It happened to me when I wanted to make guacamole and I wanted a pinch of cumin and the corner store only sold it by the half pound.

Every ingredient counts, and yes the dish could be made without that pinch or teaspoon, but it just won't be the same.

So, the lesson of the story is, however much you love lemons, you still need sugar to make lemonade, and a full pantry will tie the bow of flavors perfectly.

LM