Amanda Miller
Columnist
Lettuce Eat Local

I guess I hope that at some point Benson grows out of it. But for now, I adore the way his “L”s slide into “Y”s, his “W”s are often “V”s, and his “R”s are typically completely elided. Is there anything sweeter than a three-year-old little boy with a little lisp? Or should I say, anything sveeter than a thee-year-old yittle boy with a yittle yisthp? 

Yeah, I can see that not being as endearing in college. 

Even in pre-preschool, or whatever it is that we could call our random working in a Pre-K activity book, those speech patterns are precious but not super helpful. Benson recognizes all his letters and is making progress on remembering what sound each one makes, but the way he says a few is fundamentally different than the way they should be. Which, to be fair, it’s English, so it’s already ridiculously confusing, and there is probably some irregular rule that makes his pronunciation accurate in some cases. 

“Here’s a duh-duh-duh desk. Does that start with D?” “Yes! And yes, here’s a duh-duh-duh dorilla!” Phonics are tough. 

Sometimes he can physically say the word the right way, but he’s so used to calling it something else that he’ll sound it out simultaneously correctly and inaccurately. One of our favorite pages from Dr. Seuss’s ABCs book is “many mumbling mice making midnight music, mighty nice,” and Benson mmms his way straight into parsing out mmmate-mmmole — his preferred breakfast food that you might know as oatmeal.

L is particularly difficult so far, since he is clearly using his deductive skills when he says that yemon, yeyyow, and yadybug all start with Y. When he says them, they do. I’ve been noticing more this week when Benson says L words, since I knew it was time to write an L-focused article. My favorite example is when he randomly started lilting “Away in a Manger” on the way to town, because while it’s decisively too early for Christmas songs, I could yisten to him sing about the yittle yord Jesus all day long. 

L is a little difficult to write a food article on, too, even if you can pronounce it properly. I thought about doing something with lamb…but that’s as far as I got. Lychee is a little too hard to get, lobster is too expensive, lollipops are too much sugar. I did just make (tender)loin this week, but most of you don’t have as easy access to that kind of beef. Lasagna would have been a great choice, as would have linguini or lentils, but of course I didn’t think of those until I cheated and googled “foods that start with an L.” 

I was also mostly distracted by the obvious two — lemon and lime. Just as Benson has a complicated relationship with Ls, I have a complicated relationship with citrusy Ls. I love them in water, and essentially nowhere else. I wrote about lemon cake not all that long ago, so I figured we should go with lime this time; I recently made a key lime pie for, incidentally, the same lemon-cake friend. I’m happy to admit I was pleasantly surprised upon sampling the filling (because I literally cannot cook without tasting), that it wasn’t terrible. In fact, if it weren’t for someone else, I think I could almost have eaten a piece. 

Or at least, a yittle bit of one.

Key Yime Pie

Although I try to either create all my recipes or at least modify others’, it’s hard to do with key lime pie since the ingredients are so simple and that classic taste hinges on those. Hence, this is a very normal pie. You might be less disappointed in “normal” than I am, and honestly, it was good enough that I was only a yittle sad…and mostly because it’s quite difficult to sneak a piece out of a pie. 

Prep tips: I haven’t done a side-by-side of key lime versus “regular”/Persian lime juice, but it seems key limes are more tart and floral. You should be able to find a bottle of key lime juice even when/if you can’t find fresh key limes.

3 egg yolks

1 [14-oz] can sweetened condensed milk

4 oz key lime juice 

2 limes (either type); 1 zested and 1 sliced in very thin rounds

½ t cream of tartar

a graham cracker pie crust, baked

whipped cream

Beat egg yolks until they lighten in color; mix in sweetened condensed milk. Whisk in lime juice, lime zest, and cream of tartar. Pour into crust; bake at 325° until set, 10-15 minutes. Chill thoroughly, then top with plenty of whipped cream and garnish with the lime slices.