Lemon Squeezer: What Is It and How Do I Use It?

When I was growing up, my family used a glass lemon squeezer to make fresh lemon juice.  I don’t know where this gadget came from.  It was just hanging out in a kitchen drawer with a lot of other strange objects. 

The family’s lemon squeezer stayed home when I went off to college. 
However, after I moved into an apartment, I bought my own squeezer.  It never occurred to me to simply buy bottled lemon juice—until the day I dropped my squeezer and it broke.

A few years went by before I found an identical squeezer at a gourmet kitchenware store.  Now that I live in California and my neighbor has a lemon tree, I have more need of it than ever.  

Here’s how you use a lemon squeezer: cut the lemon (or orange, tangerine, grapefruit or lime) in half and place the cut side down onto the glass dome in the middle of the squeezer.  Push and turn the citrus with one hand while holding the squeezer steady with the other hand.  The squeezer’s curious design allows it to trap the unwanted lemon seeds.  Repeat until you have enough juice.  One large lemon may provide as much as 1/2 cup juice. Smaller lemons may provide as little as 2 tablespoons juice.

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