Did you know India is one of the world’s largest producers of lemons?

I didn’t, till they told me so.

Someone wise once said surround yourself with people who know more than you. I’m obedient, so I listen to wise people.

I love lemons, in all shapes, sizes and formats. I never not had lemons at home, ever – to squeeze over a curry or salad or into a glass, to grate into a batter, to slice up and shove into gin, to rub on my elbows.  Now I am not going to preach about all the 5 million things you can do with it, you folks have the World Wide Web to give you enough information. What I am here to talk about is, well, why are we talking about lemons anyway?

The wonderful folks at Mahindra & Mahindra (I love people who use their names twice at once, like my email address abhikabhik@gmail.com) have initiated a fundraising campaign to help the farmers of India. A community that is the backbone of our nation. Honestly, if they didn’t exist, we would have to eat artificially and genetically modified mumbo-jumbo. So #SeventhBreakast is stoked to step up and make itself useful and further the conversation to help improve the lives of Indian farmers. We are participating in the #SeedTheRiseChallenge and donating a little bit of our savings to Naandi Foundation, Swades Foundation, Nanhi Kali and Digital Green. You must too! Read on till the end, and learn how you can make a difference. It’s high time we got up and did something to help our farmers. Right?

Here a few of my favorite things to do with these beautiful lemons:

I would find it very difficult to sleep well tonight if I was not going to tell you how much I love a lemon ice-tea. Crushed ice, tea, honey and lemon. I drank several of these on my recent trip to Cambodia because it was excruciatingly hot and I was bullied into doing outdoor things.

Our country isn’t the healthiest place on the planet. So I make this concoction often to keep my immunity strong from all the sogginess and sootiness that permeates the foul air I breathe in India. A hot cup of ginger, honey, lemon and basil make the throat feel alive. And it really is an antidote for smokers brutally abused throat.

When I was in Dhaka, I fell in love with gondho-raj-neboo a generous hit of black salt and a drizzle of fresh honey and you have a drink that’s really only going to make you smack your lips and greedily go back to gulp down the rest of your beverage.

#SeventhBreakfast tip: add a generous glug of Bombay Sapphire and have yourself a lovely afternoon!

 

 

It would really hurt my soul if I wrote an entire blog post and it did not have a piece of meat in it. So here you have a spatchcock chicken which must have a generous squeeze of lemon before being devoured. After all, this poor chicken’s backbone was removed and it was flattened before being grilled. All those smoky, char-ie flavours have to have the acidity of a big fat lemon.

Now here is the important part. Watch this video which the talented folks of Flying Cursor have put together.

And donate HERE, a little, a lot, it is up to you, what’s really key, is that you do something about it. For everything that you donate, the wonderful people at Mahindra & Mahindra will match it. Our farmers would do with this and a whole lot more. Please donate. Please share this too.

 

(These images are not owned by Seventh Breakfast)