If you were intrigued by the finger limes I loved so much, they're available to the public now. Yes, the price is high - that's supply and demand, there just aren't many finger limes out there yet. $30 will give you a good number of limes to play with, though.

It's crazy how ... available things are. When I first started cooking, the "ethnic" aisle at the supermarket was mostly tomato sauce, some Goya products, some soy sauce and Chinese food in a can. Now that same supermarket - well, its successor in the same location - carries black garlic. And what you can't get locally, well - in the past I've gone online to order beef cheeks, fresh huckleberries, fresh curry leaves, jaboticaba, Sechuan buttons, Japanese caramel Cheetos, licorice Mentos, and those Haribo sour fizzy cola bottles.

It's the food equivalent of what I'm always saying about music: when I was a kid I depended on trips to Newbury Street in Boston two or three times a year to find good records, but now you can get on the internet, and anything you can't download for free you can certainly find for sale somewhere. Availability isn't the limit anymore, it's just knowing what to look for.