Who Travels with Dried Limes?

Admittedly, there are still things that are hard to find in Saint John. Like dried limes. My sister has been visiting lately, via Portland, ME, via Brooklyn, NYC, via Las Vegas NV, where she was studying for her USMLEs. At times, you have to wonder why she's in med school and not culinary school, but oh well, disease was her final choice. She showed up in SJ with all of her luggage to clean out her storage facility in preparation for returning to NYC to set up house and start her first clinical. And that means: cooking. She hasn't been allowed by her boyfriends' parents, with whom she has been staying, to cook or bake at all when she was supposed to be studying. So she wanted to make a few dishes while in my kitchen.

I was a little worried with the first recipe she showed me. Where was I going to find dried limes in SJ? It turns out that she has been travelling with dried limes and spices all over North America and the Caribbean for the past year. Who but a real foodie does that? She also had a few casserole dishes hidden in her luggage. Her boyfriend doesn't know about her stashes as she takes responsibility for packing. There's no need to worry about this girl, she'll always get what she wants...

The Gorma Sabsi (sp?) she made was a great big stew primarily composed of a mountain of parsley and coriander, stewing beef, fenugreek, kidney beans and limes, served over saffron rice. It was good, but was decidely foreign to my palate at first- it wasn't quite sour, but the flavour was very green, and made me search in my head for flavour links. It is rare that I get to eat something that makes my brain work hard- that is foreign to all my previous food experiences and this was definitely one of them. It was the same feeling as when you travel and your perspective gets stretched a little bit. In this case, my tastebuds got stretched. I kept eating the leftovers, and now I think it's tasty and am wondering where I'm going to find dried limes!