Fresh Fruit from the Markets and Orchards

One thing that takes time after a move is the process of discovery:  where the best grocery stores are, where there might be an orchard with well-priced fruit.  We've learned to ask questions and make small talk with people, and that's where we've gleaned the best local information.  

Google might be great, but it can't replace the woman who goes to the flea market down that road that goes west from the intersection by the school on Thursdays for mangoes, or the coworker who takes a moment to let us know there's an orchard down another road selling oranges and grapefruit for twenty cents per pound and giant avocados for fifty cents each.

Perhaps our diet has changed more moving here than any other place.  We've never lived in a climate where figs and bananas grow in the neighbors' yards, not to mention poinsettias.  And so we've tried, and enjoyed, quite a few new things, and we're making things that used to be an expensive treat more the norm on our table.

Thus when I see large tunas (or prickly pears) at the market selling eight for a dollar, I load up.  Or when there is a stand selling whole boxes of mangoes for a dollar each, I take the risk and buy two boxes, even though they look like they might be past their prime.  Or large papayas for one dollar each?  I bring home eight, and we eat some fresh and freeze the rest for smoothies.  Or pineapples on sale two for a dollar?  Let's just say we've been loading up on fresh fruit goodness.

We sit around the breakfast table, reading about starting pineapple seeds (it takes two months).  We consider starting a plant from the top of the pineapple we've just opened up this morning.  I've done this before with a friend in college.  She still has the plant nearly a decade later, but to my knowledge it has never borne fruit, likely because of her darker, colder climate.

We think a pineapple would be happy in our front yard in the bed next to the driveway, but even though it's warm today, and we could take it outside right after breakfast, we decide to wait, perhaps until late January or early February, the weather will for sure be heating up.