asimplefellow

Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?….

Day 16 of 100 Happy Days

I take my lunch to work everyday. It varies…sometimes it is a sandwich, sometimes leftovers, sometimes it is a something grilled on some greens. Tuna, beef, chicken, pork…all of them have been in there in some way.

But regardless of the midday, brown bag, main course, there just has to be a piece of fruit, or two. Fruit  makes the lunch whole, and signals that it is over!

Today, there are so many different types of fruit…citrus, melons, berries, whatever you call the banana family, the apple and pear gang, the fruit with pits like peaches and plums, and cherries and grapes,  and then the whole bunch of exotics– pineapples and passion fruit, persimmons, lychees (or is that a nut), papaya, guavas and so on and so on. (I won’t include tomato in this list…though technically it belongs here. I just have never had a tomato with whipped cream….)

If you have not tried them all, and sampled the cornucopia of other fruit that is available, do you know what you are missing?

As a kid with braces, fruit was became our candy as gum, gummmies, and toffees were not on the “allowed list”. Of course there was the occasional sweet – usually plain milk chocolate –  but my parents were smart. They knew fruit could scratch many itches: it was special, we loved it, and it prevented scurvy!

The real treat was on a weekend afternoon when we used to share a massive fruit plate – usually after the Sunday 10km walk through Toronto’s valley parks (my Dad’s favourite hobby, since fresh air was cheap). Mom would peel and core the apples, wash the cherries, slice the bananas, quarter the oranges, add the grapes. And If it was on sale, we would get the treat of a fresh mango or two, watermelon, or a  whole peeled, cored pineapple – you know the kind that came in the large clear plastic tubs.

And if the fruit was expensive, or out of season, the fallback was tinned fruit – a British delicacy!  I remember the joy, just short of squeals,  that a tin of fruit would elicit – probably more than fresh fruit. I think it was because the sweet syrup was manna from heaven by itself, let alone when Mom jacked it up by adding some evaporated milk to it.  The peaches and pears in the fruit cocktail was great – except for those washed out cherry halves that looked like discarded shrunken clown noses and those grape halves that looked at you like some kind of aged eyeball. .

We are incredibly lucky that we can enjoy fruit even if it has to be trucked in from southern climes. I have to remind myself that for many it is an unaffordable luxury.  Sometimes I forget that.

That is why I am happy that everyday can include a little bit of nature’s bounty.

Eat your fruit!

Later,

ASF