I’m really weird about fresh fruit. I love it, but it has to be perfect. It has to be just right.
Take apples, for instance. I can’t eat most apples, they’re too gooshy and the peel comes away from the flesh and feels like a wet sticker, still with the adhesive on, that slightly mushy fruit meat. I only like Royal Gala apples: so crisp and clean and crunchy with a peel that seems like part of the fruit, like a coating of flavor instead of skin.
I like d’Anjou pears, the ones that look terrible, bruised and swollen, that give to a push but just so far and no further. They bite with a clean, sweet balance just right between crisp and soft and give an enormous burst of flavor. Japanese pears are great, too, with their pear taste and apple crunch; the best of both worlds.
I love seedless grapes, the big purpley ones, but not the ones that are so dark as to be almost black. I mean the ones that shade from dark dark pink to burgundy with maybe a touch of green highlight, they’re almost red, actually. They’re like a little sweetness bomb, each one. I like seedless green grapes, too, but often they can be deceiving: plump and water-filled enticements that reveal themselves as too tart too late. Best is red and green together, a big pile tumbled in a bowl, glowing with freshness and beaded with cold water from washing.
Small nubbly clementines, the kind that feel loose within their thick rinds, make me light up. They’re quick to open, that fat glowing sunshine peel coming off practically in one piece, but slow to clean up, as I insist on removing every bit of inner rind, those white strings that run up and down each section. The firmness of each section as it’s separated, the bright and juicy bite, the sharpness and taste of pure summer despite their winter seasonality, O small orange!
Smooth and creamy canteloupe slices, fat frozen blueberry buttons, solid and savory strawberries cut up and lightly coated in cream with a sprinkle of sugar. Perfectly stingy-sweet circles of pineapple, just cold enough to tingle on the tongue. And while I’ve always liked the TASTE of banana, I’m not at all keen on the texture.
I just took a pear from the refrigerator and sliced it in half and then again in fourths. It was shiny and slick on the inside, not quite white. I sliced again to remove the stem and core quarters from each piece and then I sat down and ate it. I took the first bite and then I had to eat the whole thing all at once, it was that good.
It was the best pear ever, so far.
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Some anagrams for my full name:
UNSHAKEABLE NETHER GLITZ
UNTHINKABLE HAZEL EGRETS
BLANKET ULTRAHIGH SNEEZE
LEAKING HAZELNUT SHERBET
BANANA GEEZER THISTLE HULK
STARGAZE HATH NUBILE KNEEL
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