Lemon meringue bites

In western Washington, it's rarely very hot. This day, it was. It was the middle of August and dust flew into the air around us. From the pegs of my bike, my friend urged me to ride faster, to leave behind the raspberry farm where we'd worked a long, hard, 2 hour long shift. We liked the job (mostly because we could eat as many raspberries as we picked), but it was hot, we were 12, and the river was calling. Our dust-coated throats begged for mercy as we rode into town, and with cash to fuel our Mountain Dew addictions, we headed toward a Texaco. I peddled sluggishly along, slowed both by the scorching heat and the added weight of my passenger. As I rounded the corner at a snail's pace, a beacon of hope appeared in the guise of a lemonade stand. Mountain Dew could come later. We probably would've settled for a mud puddle by then, if the sun hadn't wiped them all out. I still have no idea what was in the lemonade we got from the boy behind the flimsy fold-out table that day. It could've been Country Time powder for all I know. But it tasted like it was freshly squeezed from lemons grown by angels that day.

As I've grown, I've come to appreciate lemon as a flavor in more than just lemonade. Lemon meringue in particular makes me think of summer, between the lemon and the toasted-marshmallow-esque flavor of meringue. So I decided instead of making a nice 9 inch lemon meringue pie, which would have to be eaten by the slice, with a fork, I'd make bite-sized lemon meringues. Even though I got distracted and left them out of the refrigerator, they were a smashing success.

Makes: 24 lemon meringue bites (mini-muffin size)

Ingredients:

• 4 graham crackers
• 3 tbsp butter, melted
• 2 eggs, separated
• 4 oz sugar
• Juice of 2 lemons
• 4 oz unsalted butter, cold
• 4 oz sugar

Directions:

1. First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a food processor, grind the graham crackers until they form a into crumbs.
3. Stream in the 3 tablespoons of butter with the food processor running.
4. Take approximately half tablespoon sized scoops of graham crust and place them into your preferred pan (I used a mini muffin tin). Then compact the crumbs using some flat object  that is skinny enough to fit in your pan (I used a bottle with the lid on).
5. Bake this for approximately 5 minutes or until golden brown and set aside to cool.
6. In a heat-safe bowl oven boiling water, combine two egg yolks, sugar, and the lemon juice, stirring constantly until the temperature reaches 180 degrees.
7. Remove the egg mixture from the heat and put it into a food processor, letting it cool to 150 degrees.
8. Turn the food processor on, dropping in pieces of butter until smooth.
9. Spoon the lemon filling onto the crusts, filling the container roughly 2/3 of the way full.
10. Freeze this mixture for 1-2 hours.
11. Remove the bites from the tins using a knife or offset spatula.
12. Combine the egg whites and sugar oven a double boiler and stir slowly until they reach 140 degrees.
13. Whip the egg whites and sugar until they reach stiff peaks.
14. Pipe the meringue onto the bites and brown with a torch.

And that's it.

What flavor reminds you, more than any other, of summer?

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