By Guest Blogger Lucy Arlington (aka Sylvia May)
I love fruit. Apples, oranges, bananas, berries, pears, kiwis--you name it, I love every kind. But I’m persnickety about when they’re at their best. Take bananas, for instance. I prefer them just on the edge of ripeness. Not so green and hard that they feel funny on your teeth, but firm enough that someone like my hubby might say, “This banana is not quite ripe.” But any riper and I find it too mushy with too strong a flavour. Another example is my favourite apple, the Golden Delicious, which, in my opinion, is at its best when it’s still a tad on the green side. More yellow and it tastes too mealy to me. And, oh, pears are so wonderful when they’re crunchy!
Considering how finicky I am with regard to my fruit, you can easily imagine how I might be choosy about selecting the ones I bring home. At the market, I carefully look for a bunch of bananas at just the right state of green-ness, I press gently into apples and pears to see that they’re hard enough, I sniff and knock on melons.
Making sure they are carefully packed into my reusable bags, I set the bags carefully into the trunk of my car and at home I gently place them on the kitchen counter. Still, when I take out my bunch of perfect bananas, there, right along the edge of the curve, is a brown spot. And some of my pears have dents in them.
Does that bother you too? The damage inflicted on fruit as it is transported from the grocer’s shelf to your kitchen? How do we avoid that? We can hardly keep a supply of bubble wrap in our reusable grocery bags!
So I put up with the odd bruise and eat my slightly injured perfect-to-me fruit anyway, savouring its deliciousness. Life is like that too, isn’t it? We put up with a few bruises along the way but savour it nonetheless.
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Lucy Arlington is the nom de plume for the writing team of Sylvia May and Ellery Adams. As an amalgamated personality, she is an avid reader, cook, and gardener. If she had her way, she'd divide her time between preparing delectables in her kitchen, traveling the globe on her scooter, and sitting in a comfortable chair with a cup of coffee and a paperback until her legs cramped. Lucy is devoted to her husband and children - especially when they ply her with chocolate and gift cards to bookstores.
Lucy's first novel, "Buried in a Book," a Novel Idea Mystery, had just been released.visit her website at www.lucyarlington.com.
Sylvia May is the author of The Unraveling of Abby Settel. Visit her website at www.sylviamay.com.
Ellery Adams is the author of Books By the Bay Mysteries and upcoming Charmed Pie Mysteries. Visit her website at www.elleryadamsmysteries.com.
Yes it does bother me. My grandmother's cousin, Albert Honeywell tried to take care of that. He had the idea of moving fruit by train to where people want it. The first delivery was terrible all spoiled. He tried several different thing but could not make it work. Eventually he invented a regulator (thermostat)and created the Honeywell Company. He could never figure out how to deliver fruit though.
Posted by: Carol Wong | February 09, 2012 at 03:18 PM