You put de lime in de coconut!

Darlings, in 1969 La Diva was a cute little tow-headed tot of six years old and it was the year my mother decided to host an end of summer Hawaiian luau. My mom was the oldest sister amongst her six siblings and was the one who was always organizing fun parties and outings. My dad's father owned a cottage in Port Huron on Lake Huron not too far north of the suburbs of Detroit, and my mother invited all my aunts, uncles, cousins and friends for this big summer bash.

In her usual way of "going all out" for a party, Mom had organized everything for an authentic Hawaiian luau. I remember the men of the family digging a huge pit for a pig roast. Someone had made poi (how they found taro, I'll never know!) We were all sporting leis and even were drinking tropical drinks out of pineapples!

Cute as buttons and brown as berries: La Diva is the little one second from left with my arm around my baby sister and my brother is on the end and my cousins in the middle. We sooo enjoyed those pineapple drinks until we went into the light and saw they were swimming with gnats! Meh. A little extra protein didn't seem to hurt us!

Naturally, my mother's Hawaiian luau in Port Huron, Michigan was FABULOUS! And it made a baby girl Diva think of warm, tropical places where the sun shines all the time, palm trees grow and coconuts fall from the trees. I remember my father cracking open a fresh coconut for us to eat, bashing it with a hammer, coconut shells and milk splattering everywhere! I was eating coconut from the shell for the first time and loved it. In my little kid head, I knew that one day I wanted to find a tropical paradise and live where I could pick the coconuts from the tree.

Fast forward to late September 1991...

La Diva was enjoying a nice crisp chardonnay to go along with the crisp night on her back porch swing in Chicago. As I looked out over my garden, an overwhelming sadness came over me. I knew it would not be long before I would not be able to sit out here again, enjoying my garden and my porch swing, as winter was fast approaching. I would not be able to get my hands in the rich earth and garden anymore. I gazed upon my hip little Vespa. Soon, I would not be able to ride my scooter anymore. I looked towards my bike, knowing that it would also be stored in the garage for the long winter.

La Diva started thinking....."Hmmmm...winter is long in the Midwest, about six months of gloomy, gray and cold days. Six months is half a year and half a year is a long time to put up with gloomy, gray and cold. Why, half my life I can't be outdoors doing what I love!" It dawned on me that for a Diva to be truly enjoying life, I could no longer live in the harsh cold of Chicago and I started to plan my escape to Australia. By 1993, we had sold many of our possessions, packed what we could and were en route to Sydney.

La Diva welcoming the morning sun at Manly Beach, Sydney Australia March 09.

From that point forward, I have lived where the palm trees grow. Sydney has a temperate climate and Los Angeles enjoys a dry, Mediterranean climate. Both were lovely places to live and both had very mild winters but still, they were still too cold for La Diva to swim in the ocean in wintertime. Now that I live in Miami Beach, I can truly say I live in a tropical climate and do swim in the ocean in the middle of winter, in fact, I was in the sea only yesterday. In Southern Florida, we enjoy beautiful sunshine and mild temperatures (for the most part) year round and yes, coconuts can be picked from the trees on the beach. Sigh....

When I talk to people about my journey to find a tropical paradise, they laugh when I explain:

"If a palm tree don't grow there, Diva don't go there."

Hmpf.

And so this brings me to the point of this breezy little wander down memory lane: Karmic Kitchen's Dim Sum Sunday topic of CITRUS.

While La Diva gets to enjoy the sunshine and the beach most days, many of my poor blogging buddies, friends and family are Vitamin D and sunshine deficient, freezing their buns off and craving the sunny, succulence of citrus during the long winters. You know, darlings, we really take it for granted that juicy, fresh oranges, clementines, lemons and limes are so plentiful any time of the year but it was not too long ago that eating an orange in the winter was considered a sunny treat.

If you can avoid temptation and eat only half of the pan the day you make them, that's good as La Diva thinks that they are even better when the custard sets and the tart flavor concentrates! Go on, darlings, click away and savor the citrus sunshine of Key lime coconut squares!

For my Dim Sum Sunday CITRUS entry I give you Key lime coconut squares. It has all my favorite ingredients in it, including a lovely Key lime custard. I found this recipe in the Sydney Morning Herald when I lived in Australia. I just love the yummy buttery crust with the tart custard and of course, the toasted coconut completes the tropical, citrus flavor profile.

The recipe actually calls for Persian limes, so if you can't get Key limes, don't fret. I just wanted to be masochistic and squeeze a million of the little buggers! They are only about the size of walnuts.

Click on the recipe to see larger. Castor sugar is super fine sugar. You can make this yourself by processing in a food processor or blender for a few minutes. The temp is for a pretty low oven about 320 F and then down to 300 F.

About now, you are probably thinking just how lucky my sidekick DJ Nevah L8 is, aren't you? Well, he only gets a a few squares this time as the bulk of these tart treats go to a couple of his cool co-workers that do my production bidding and help a Diva be her fabulous self for her video submissions! La Diva wishes she could pay all her debts with delicious desserts (Hello? Are you listening Visa?!)

Wanna see what other citrus dee-lights Shamu and other blogging buds came up with? Click HERE to take you to Karmic Kitchen. Don't be afraid to leave a comment. Or even try the recipes! Aloha, darlings!
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