Last week I interviewed the pastry chef at the Boothbay Harbor Country Club, Alex Tallen. As she was talking about the absolutely ridiculous French pastries she learned to make while attending a culinary school in Paris, she remembered one of her favorite desserts: Lemon posset.

“Lemon what?” I said. “Posset. It is simply heavy cream, fresh-squeezed lemon juice and sugar.” I had never heard of it, but I love anything lemon. A couple weeks ago I wrote about a lemon cake with lemon mascarpone cream filling and lemon whipped cream and candied lemon slices on top.

Yep. I love lemon anything. I wrote about lemon sponge pie, too, a while ago. Talk about ridiculous! It was in a column titled, “Whipped cream and what lies beneath.” The recipe came from Barbara Stimpson, originally from England, who made all the pies at a little restaurant on a wharf in Cushing, where I was a skinny, teenage waitress. That was when they were called waitresses. Now they’re called waitpersons or servers :-)

The restaurant, Our Place, was owned by none other than Christina (of Wyeth’s “Christina’s World”) Olson’s nephew, John, who owned the lobster wharf the restaurant sat on. He was a lobsterman then, and he still is, at 93. Still hauling by hand. He’s a legend in Cushing.

Wait. Were we talking about lobsters? Or my life as a skinny knock-kneed teenager??

Oh, that’s right – lemon posset.

So after telling me about lemon posset, Alex emailed me a recipe from a British website, The Guardian, and I made it. OMG! It is simple to make, and totally awesome. Three ingredients, five minutes, and one of the most elegant creamy desserts you'll ever have.

The website describes posset as “a medieval drink that has made a comeback as a modern dessert, and ... Britain's best creamy pudding.” It goes on to say, “Having gone into a decline, losing ground to relatives such as the syllabub, the eggnog and the trifle, the posset has made somewhat of a revival on menus in recent years. These days, however, it's more like a citrussy fool than a frothy drink – though, made entirely with thick, rich cream, it's perhaps equally likely to send you to sleep happy.”

Here’s the recipe, (translated from British measurements to plain old English, thank you Alex):

Squeeze two lemons and finely grate the zest of one of them (I admit I didn't bother with the zest, just because I was feeling lazy). The recipe calls for 100ml of lemon juice, which translates to just a little under ½ cup.

Put the juice (and zest) in a small pan with ½ cup sugar and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, just until the sugar has dissolved. Keep warm.

Heat 1 3/4 cup heavy cream just until it comes to a gentle boil. Pour it into the syrup, whisking to combine. Divide into small bowls or custard cups. I just happened to have six adorable tiny white bowls that I got a few years ago simply because they were so cute. Lemon posset is so bursting with flavor, you don’t need a big bowlful. Plus you won’t pack on any more poundage around your midsection if you're ladylike about the portions.

Stick in the fridge for at least an hour, or until they're set, and eat. My friend Nancy was up from Portland last weekend, and I gave her one of the ridiculously adorable little bowls of lemon posset, topped with a dollop of whipped cream. She’s a great cook, too :-) and she was blown away.

Another time I served it with sliced sugared strawberries.

I had one tiny bowl left last night, and for some reason I Googled lemon posset again. The first recipe I came across suggested pouring a little plain heavy cream over the top. I did, and it did, indeed, send me to sleep happy.

The lemon sponge pie I mentioned was, and is, still one of my favorite pies. It is creamy at the bottom, and light and cake-like at the top (just below the whipped cream). You can find that recipe here, or email me and I’ll happily send it to you.

Hey – are Meyer lemons available now? I tried to get some a few weeks ago, but no luck. Lemon posset made with Meyer lemons. Yikes. Off to Hannaford!

And here’s a tip for squeezing lemons that I learned from Joe Williamson’s mother. Joe, you might remember, was one of the original owners of McSeagull’s. Ready? Cut the lemon in half. Stab a fork into one of the halves. Squeeze while working the fork back and forth from side to side. You’ll get every last drop of juice out of that lemon. And if you don’t have, like, two minutes to spare, you can cheat and use pre-bottled Key West lemon juice.

See ya next week!

Oh, and don’t forget: I’m not a chef. I lay no claim to being an authority on food or cooking. I’m a good cook, and a lover of good food. And I know how to spell and put a sentence together. This column is simply meant to be fun, and hopefully inspiring. So to anyone reading this whose hackles are raised because you know more about the subject of food than I, relax. I believe you. If you have an issue, or a compliment, please email me: suzithayer@boothbayregister.com.