If you are like me, you have found that even simple recipes can be slowed down when fresh fruit juice is necessary. Want a whiskey sour or lemonade? Just dump the ingredients together. No wait, you’ve got to juice that lemon first and don’t even think about the stale bottled stuff.
For years we used one of those plastic ribbed half-football thingies that screws on the top of a jar. It sucked but we didn’t know any better. Then a friend gave us a fruit reamer which was many times better. Recently we heard about another design which was supposed to be a juicer’s delight.
The basic design of any lemon squeezer is the same. There is a hinged cup that the fruit half goes in. Squeezing a pair of handles closes the cup, inverts the fruit half and extracts the juice. The specific model that I’d heard great things about is the Amco Enameled Aluminum Lemon Squeezer. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it locally but I did find the Michael Graves Design Deluxe Lemon Squeezer at Target.
Just guessing by looking at the pictures the Michael Graves version probably isn’t quite as sturdy as the Amco one but it works just fine. Actually, it is much better than fine. It is by far the easiest and fastest way to extract fruit juice that I’ve ever tried. It doesn’t get every last drop, but then neither does a reamer and it is so much faster than a reamer. It takes about as long as running garlic through a garlic press, but much less hand strength is required. It seems like it will hold up as well as other items in this price category but eventually the finish probably will come off. I think the product life could be extended with a quick hand washing rather than running it through a dishwasher every time it is used.
My only quibble is that small seeds slip through the strainer and into the juice, but overall this is a great kitchen gadget.
Jason Patz 