2005 Food Recommendations, Installment 2

Before winter ends, and takes with it the citrus fruit season, a review of the doyenne of citrus fruit, the grapefruit. By Elizabeth Crawford


The fruit cart just came by. There was nothing exciting or exotic on it, so I chose an orange which was in the same basket as the grapefruits. This reminded me about my latest grapefruit epiphany, which I am not sure that I shared with you. Well, B eats grapefruit for breakfast every morning, like a few other people in the world. And I always thought she was weird for it because they aren't really that filling, plus they have some other undeniably negative aspects. For instance:
a) they take up way too much space in the toe of your Christmas stocking;
b) they take way too long to eat;
c) they require special grapefruit spoons that are pointier than normal spoons but just as hard to find in stores as Zara's missing spoon;
d) they squirt you in the eye; and
e) unlike oranges which you can buy by the five pound bag for something like $1.99 in the winter, grapefruits are always expensive (their market value hovers around 89 cents a piece at the Safeway on Columbia next to the Kentucky Fried Chicken).

But, then, I had my epiphany. Or rather, B in combination with a mistake had my epiphany for me.

When I told B she was weird for eating grapefruits every morning (except when she eats grapenuts -- which is rare because she doesn't like them and we have a slight weevle problem), she said that she thought I would like eating grapefruits in the morning because they are a nice slow way to wake up. She compared eating them to me sitting on the futon at 5:30 every morning, watching the weather and waiting for my coffee to cool. This piqued my interest because I like sitting on the couch all grumpy with my coffee in the morning.
Then, by accident I grabbed a grapefruit off the fruit cart instead of an orange (again they were sharing a basket). Rather than go fruitless I ate the grapefruit and I realized love them!