Ripe

(Pre-Script: This post will refresh you from the inside out when read as the song, "Sweet Pea," #20 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

Oh how I love it when I cut into an avocado, past the tough skin into the soft edible portion, and find that it is, yes indeed! A perfect avocado! Cut open at the peak of it's lovely perfection!! But Cutting into any fruit is a gamble; you never can know for sure what condition a fruit is going to be in until you cut it open and see for yourself, in the privacy of your own home, usually your own kitchen. You pick your fruit based on an educated guess. There are signs that your fruit will be good or bad, based on firmness to softness ratio, and the color of the outside skin. There are varieties that tend to be better than others, and have a higher rate of perfect fruit goodness. you can't cut a fruit open in the store, before you buy it; then it would be completely unsellable, and shop owners look down on having their sellable items being made unsellable before they have even been sold. Avocados are not cheap. So it is important to pick well. Apples are easier to choose, I think. But even apples can deceive you. I once cut into what looked like a perfectly perfect crisp, firm apple (just say "no" to powdery apples. As far as I know, no naturally occurring apples should ever contain powder.) to find brown rot in the middle. I was bewildered and instantly turned off and threw the apple away. I was 8. This is how I learned the concept of a rotten apple. My mother was the unsuspecting consumer who wasted precious grocery money on that bit of rottenness. She had no clue, and how could she, there were no outward evidences of such rottenness based on what she could see. And her innocent (to such apple atrocities) daughter was the victim who paid the real price. The price of having the memory of her first rotten apple etched in her mind for time immemorial. Or at least for the rest of her life. Why am I now talking about myself in the third person.

Be careful of the things you bring home that look alright on the surface. You never really know what it actually contains until you get inside of it. This usually happens in the kitchen.

-XOXO,