Today, at the end of summer, I found STRAWBERRIES for 1.29 a crate (one pound!) at my local Randall's. So, I bought several for my sick mom and several for me!!! While posting / reading posts....I thought about how I love good strawberries, and the fact that they can always be cut up and have Sweet 'n' Low added to them if they aren't very sweet. I also love blueberries, cherries, and raspberries, but my vote is...
STRAWBERRIES!!
Peaches!
Peaches are great to eat right out of your hand, or bake them in a pie, cobbler, ice cream, crisp, etc. My Mom made homemade fried peach pies when we were kids and, because they were such a rare treat and so wonderful, I think they have become almost legendary in my memories! Just the best!
I don't have a "favorite". I like them all...but if I had to choose...hmmm...
Mango would have to take the prize. I can't go a day without my fruit. Mandarin oranges come a very close second.
I too love ALL fruit and eat lots of it during Summer, especially peaches and those black plums--soft and ripe--with the juice running down my chin.....
I guess my favorite has to be the sweet Melons of Summer. Cantelopes--Honeydews--and Watermelons. I love eating them together with Dannon's "Light and Fit" Vanilla yogurt. It has to be the big 32oz container--much creamier than the same in those small containers.
The balance of the sweet Melons with the slight tartness of the yogurt is amazing!
TRY it--you'll like it! The kids will too--just tell them it's a Dip....
Gita
My favorite fruit is a small yellow mango with a funny name, something like atauelfo? Other than that, I like any fruit that is in season! Especially if it is organic, so I can cut down on my insecticide intake. The organic plums that have started to appear in my local supermarket are really tasty - I love the contrast between the tart skins and the sweet flesh when you bite into them (remembering to wipe the juice off your chin afterwards).
I like so many kinds of fruit. Really ripe home grown peaches are super great! Sweet cherries. Fugi apples. Peckem or Packem pears. Water melon! Any fruit that is local and in season. And some that aren't, too! Tangerines, for instance, don't grow locally where I am.
It is hard for me to pick a favorite...I love a good Canteloupe and Watermelon..and I once had a melon in Europe and have never been able to find it here..it was green and I think its name was Galia Melon it was wonderful, very aromatic and Cranshaw, I adore them too...and Black and Raspberries are wonderful too..there is an Apple, actually a couple that I really like..one is the Spartan and the other is a Sonya....
Plums! I love plums. mmmmm
I like all fruit except mango. If I had to pick one favorite, I would have to go with lemons, because I use them the most. I squeeze the juice into my water, tea, and on some veggies and fish. Then I eat the pulp after squeezing the juice out. I have lemons in one form or another every day.
As for fruit that is strictly the eating type, I would have to go with cherries.
I'm not much of an apple person. I like them, but I don't hunt them out. However, when I was a kid, one of our neighbors had a Dolgo apple tree that I walked by every day. I loved those tart little apples. I'm trying to grow some trees of my own, but they are struggling. I hope that someday they will take off and bear some apples for me.
I was on a long bike ride today and stopped at a roadside produce stand to look for a snack. When the nice lady asked what I was looking for and I told her just a snack she handed me a giant juicy peach. No charge. It doesn't get any better than that!
early_bloomer
Rassberries. UMMMMM. I pick em and freeze them on a cookie sheet then put them in a seal lock baggie and everytime I have a bowl of cereal I can drop a handful in and by the time I get to them the milk has defrosted them. Of coarse fresh is best but that only last so long.
My favorite is a toss up between fresh Bing cherries and watermelon.
Speaking of apples, Melva, have you guys ever had a "Honeycrisp" apple? I just discovered them about 5 years ago...and they are my favorite! We only have them here in Austin for about a month...in the fall.
Hey Connie_W, what would you charge me to ship a bag of those honeycrisps to me. I would gladly pay shipping and the cost of the apples. If you like we can trade for a pine needle basket that I would make for you. LMK
Jan
Fugi apples rule!!!
Raspberries; Dessert Gooseberries; Arctic Cloudberries,
Honeycrisp apples! I had almost forgotten about them, they turn up so rarely and fleetingly. If I find any, I buy pounds of them and eat no other fruit for days. I vote for Honeycrisp as the best apple ever. But don't let Big Agribusiness find out about them, or it will turn them into some kind of all-year-round, bland, tastless, juiceless thing.
My mouth is watering. Have the honeycrisps came into season yet. Please someone send me a box and I will do something nice for you.
Jan
Jan...sorry it took so long to reply! I will let you know when the HC's come in. In past years, only Whole Foods had them, and they were very expensive, but now I've noticed that other stores carry them. And I believe they originate from the "North," so you might be able to get them where you are from.
Okay...I just went to Google and looked them up. They originated in Minnesota in the 70's and they are now MInnesota's state fruit! Jan...send me your address via D-mail and I will send you a few...but a box? Well, they are expensive, and I"ll bet a box would be around 50.00! Are you serious about wanting an apple box full...or just a shoebox mailed with a few? ha ha
They are truly the BEST apples I've ever tasted....a unique combination of sweet and tart....and crisp, of course...hence the name! They are also unique for the coloring...kinda splotchy with both yellow and red. Or that's my memory of them.
A shoe box is fine. I had no idea. But you know what they say, if its a good thing you have to pay for it.
My addy is
Jan MacKay
174 NW 10th St
Toledo, OR 97391
thanks, My computer is at the doctors so I am at the library using the one there.
Jan
I like fruit. I actually haven't found a type of fruit I don't like yet. My top three are Apricots, Strawberries and peaches. If I was just pressed on it I would pick Apricots. I even named my little Chihuahua Apricot.
Connie_W, Let me know what the cost is and I will get it sent to you asap. Looking forward to a great apple.
Thanks
Jan
Tomatoes, why I don't know, just like the taste of a fresh vine ripened tomato.
A fresh Honeybell, right off the tree, a good navel will work as well. Strawberries and fresh peaches. Hard to beat a good watermelon but I havent a really good sweet watermelon without a cantalope texture in years.
Cherries - it's got be cherries. To me they taste the best and the season is so short.
Watermelon !! It's always been, except this year- Good ones are so hard to find. (I'm losing my taste for them) The ones I bought this year have a soft slimy area around the seed or the seedless have it around where the seeds usually are, and the taste is rancid. Anyone know why good melons are hard to find this year????
I also LOVE blueberries and pomegranates! (also bing cherries, hmmmmmm)
I remember eating pomeganates when I was little and didn't care that it stained my blouse or my hands. Oh to be young again when the little things just didn't matter but just made it all the better. I also remember eating guavas and papayas off the tree in Hawaii. My sweet little daughter love the guavas and her little diapers were full of little black seeds. Sorry, I'm sure you didn't need that much info. Eheh
Gourd...NO, the memory is wonderful, and besides, who cares....it's BABY poo! :-)
Thanks Connie, I have to agree.
I love all the summer fruits but my favorite are the wild thimble berries that grow at the edge of the woods. But they are only available for a short time and then they are gone until the next year.
We have those here in Oregon too and I have to agree with you on those. They are especially nice to find after a long hike and you come upon those with a nice cool stream bubbling up close by. Ummmm. Nice treat.
No 1. Watermelon - sweet, juicy, and seedless.
No 2. Imperial Mandarins
No 3. Fuji apples - sweet, juicy and crisp
No 4. Passionfruit - perfect with vanilla icecream.
No 5. Italia grapes
No 6. Lychees
No 7. Strawberries (if home grown, would probably be at No 1), but the big, apple sized commercially produced ones just don't have the intensity of flavour or the juicy texture. Pity.
What kind of fruit are Lychees?
Amber_lee, Lychees originate in southern China. They are about the size of a VERY large grape. The outer casing is reddish and knobbly and hard, although there is give in it if you squeeze it gently. Easily peeled by hand, the flesh is whitish-grey and somewhat the same consistency of a loquat. They have a largish, slippery seed, also similar to a loquat and the flesh is juicy, sweet and unique in flavour, although probably comes closest to tasting like a cross between a grape and a guava. A very clean taste. Typically you'd eat approximately 12 in a sitting. If you're ever tempted to buy tinned lychees, be prepared for a very inferior taste that bears little or no resemblance to the fresh ones.
This message was edited Sep 6, 2008 7:54 PM
Margaret: I'm laughing at my naivete! You compared the lychee (which I don't think I've ever had either) to a loquat...and I've never tasted them either! I guess they are not real popular here in Texas! :-)
The Lychees sound good. I don't believe I have ever seen any for sale in my neck of the woods.
OK, lets see if I can describe a loquat. It is about the size of an apricot, kinda pear-shaped but the bit that is attached to the stalk isn't as dramaticaaly narrowed as a pear. The skin is smooth and a little bit leathery, but edible and is a medium yellowish orange colour. The fruit is about the same texture as a grape, but firmer and they have a proportionately large seed that is very slippery and dificult to get hold of. The taste is unique, so I can't compare it to anything. Lovely and sweet. It has a relatively short period of availability in late winter through early spring. It used to be a fairly common backyard tree, but with urban infill reducing the size of blocks, nobody seems to have them any more. It also originates from southern China.
Loquats are great, althought I've never seen them for sale in the market my in-laws used to have one in there back yard that I would raid when they were ripe. Much better then cumquats.
Lychee,
Loquat,
Cumquat....
Banana Bana, Bo-Banna.....remember that song from the 60's?!!! :-)
We will be dating ourselves if we say yes, but yes, I do remember that song quite well. It was so much fun to sing. Now it will be in the back of my mind all day. Heheh
Jan Jan, bo ban, banana fana fo fan, fe fi mo man......Jan
This message was edited Sep 8, 2008 7:24 PM
