e_juliana | Fruit, glorious fruit....

I love fruit. There's not a fruit I can point to and say - "I won't eat that in any form" (although I've not yet tried durian fruit). Sure, I may not like some varietals - Granny Smith apples, for instance - but fruit as a whole? Delish.

My favorite fruits, the ones I can eat at any time, are stone fruits. Peaches, plums, nectarines, cherries, these are all heaven-sent nummy goodness. I can quite easily eat a 2-pound bag of cherries in one sitting. I wait impatiently for nectarines to hit that 30-minute window of ripened perfection. A plum is a symphony in my mouth. The best, however, are pluots. Specifically, Dapple Dandy pluots. The right Dapple Dandy, eaten just before it starts getting mushy, has an almost spicy quality to it that reminds me of Japanese food.

Twin Girls Farm is my main crack supplier for all of these fruits. The Wedge carries plums and pluots from them, and there is no comparision between those fruits and the other kinds I find at the big supermarkets. The non-organic fruits don't have the complexity to them that the organic ones do - the Dapple Dandys are too sweet, the nectarines are bland.

We're moving out of stone fruit season, but the melons and berries are coming up strong to compensate. Minnesota is very good for growing melons, berries, and apples, even if we're a bit behind California's curve. Still, there's a nice watermelon waiting at home, ready to be messy and wonderful, and a pint of blueberries that I may eat right out of the carton. The melons will shift to apples, the apples will shift to satsumas, and then there's a slight dearth until stone fruits come back. Yum.

I love fruit.