Anti-Presentation

Forget the pretty tableware, forget spoons and knives, forget manners. Some eating is best enjoyed with the raw pleasure of a beast with it's kill. The messier the better.

I recently bought a big bag of heavy pink grapefruit at my local buying club. They are probably end of the season fruit so I am enjoying them with end of season fervor. I've eaten one a day for the last week and now two remain.

I started out with a neatly cut half and gently excised the pulp wedges from the membranes with a grapefruit knife so I could politely eat the juicy fruit with a spoon. I could not hold myself back however. After all the pink fruit was removed from the peels, I squeezed the spongy skins to extract the remaining juice and drank from the bowl. These are good grapefruit: tart and juicy with a sweet aftertaste.

I soon abandoned cutting and spooning for a peel-and-eat strategy. Sounds easy? First I bite into the bitter thick peel. Then I pull it off in big sheets by hand. Lots of bitter membrane remains, so I strip it off using my fingernails where necessary. Next, I gore the stem end with my thumb and separate the fruit in half. Juice runs down my wrists.

I separate a section from the half and bite a hole at the thinnest part of the wedge. I peel back both sides of the membranes and shiny pink globules appear. I bite a wedge of pulp away from the membrane attachment. Juice squirts. I am in heaven and I am a mess. I continue wedge by wedge until all I have is a pile of empty membranes, and juice-covered hands and face.

Presentation you say? Those pink shiny wedges are beautiful when they are carefully eviscerated from the membranes but this is a feasting experience similar to eating lobster in its carapace or ribs dripping with barbecue sauce. A bib isn't a bad idea.

Lycopene and fiber? Yes, grapefruit is good for you. But who cares about that when you can abandon yourself to a sensual feast?

Simplest Dessert

I have a sweet tooth. I frequently read dessert recipe ingredient lists for the perfect dessert...something with a few vitamins and minerals, that's low fat, with good carbohydrates and a little fiber. The ingredient list for this dessert is short, and frankly, it blows me away.

When I was in Boulder a couple of months ago, I had lunch at a funky little restaurant attached to a food coop. I got the best felafel sandwich...actually, it was a "to die for" felafel sandwich. When I ordered I got to choose something to go with it. I picked an apple. I felt proud, virtuous ....."yeah, I'm eating healthy today."

Eating the sandwich, I had to stop myself from moaning out loud . Felafel sandwiches, especially perfect ones, are rare treats for me. Then I started in on the apple. I don't remember what kind of apple it was, but it was cored and the skin was still on and it was cut into razor thin slices. It was wet, crisp, sweet and... simply apple: it was extraordinary.

After lunch, I went to the coop and bought a Fuji apple and an Asian pear and took them home "to fix" with the dinner I had planned. I cored and sliced them thin, peeled and sliced kiwi fruit and made a pretty arrangement on a plate. I scattered pomegranate seeds across the top. My dinner companions loved dessert.

Now, I eat most apples that way. All it takes is a good piece of fruit, an extra sharp knife, a pretty plate and a little time and energy. Sometimes I add chopped peanuts or minced toasted almonds, sometimes I add a dusting of cinnamon. It's the perfect dessert, so simple, and so good because it tastes extraordinary.

Bananas!

I got out the bag of banana crisps today and a little less than a serving remained so I decided to finish the bag without using a bowl. I sat down, and as I was eating, I reread the nutrition label and made a shocking discovery. "Banana Crisps" with the same picture and label on the front of the bag is no longer an 80 calorie snack made with bananas and a little sugar. A new ingredient is on the nutrition label......rice bran oil. The same size serving now delivers 150 calories and 8 grams of fat, 2 of which are saturated. I was horrified.

I read nutrition labels and I tend to remember good snack food. I was excited when I found these last summer at a "health food" store I shop from time to time. I like banana crisps. They taste good and are fun to eat. In my mind they were junk food that wasn't really junk food.

Then I got mad. The label on the front of the bag is exactly the same. The nutrition label has changed. I have no idea when it changed. Who knows how long I have been eating roughly twice the calories and extra fat. My "health food" store pulled a fast one. I don't feel the same about their products. I can't run in and pick up my favorites every few weeks, I HAVE to read the labels to see if anything has changed. I'm not sure if I want to shop there anymore.

Then I thought about this some more. I was calling this snack "fruit." In reality, it is processed food. Who knows how those bananas were made into tasty dried slighty sweet crisps. If I am fully honest about the situation, I was telling myself something that wasn't true. The better food choice is a banana...the yellow fruit with a peel. I know this and I need to stop telling myself that processed or prepared food is equivalent to food that comes from a plant that grows in the ground.

Bananas! What a lesson I got today.

Edamame in the shell

I laugh as I type in "recipe" as a label for this entry because the instructions are so simple. Guess this is a typical American recipe.

• Buy a bag of edamame in the shell in the frozen food section of your grocery store, Asian market or health food store.
• Open the bag and pour the amount you want to eat into a dish you can put into the microwave.
• Read the bag and follow the microwave instructions.
• Enjoy!

How did I get this far in life and NOT know the joys of edamame in the shell. I sit cross legged on the sofa with two bowls..one full of hot edamame and another empty one for the shells. I pop open the end of the shell with my fingers, then I bite and suck out the contents of the shell... two or three nice warm nutty flavored smooth green beans. The work involved eating edamame makes it the perfect snack for me. I have never enjoyed shelled edamame in the same way. I would just as soon leave it as eat it. Funny how that works.

Never heard of edamame? It is pronounced "ed-dah-mah-meh" and it means soybean in Japanese. "Oh yes," you say. Everyone has heard of soybeans. Edamame in the shell are an entirely different experience however. Nature's perfect snack food in my mind....they taste great and they are good for you.

If you haven't had them, definitely give them a try.