Tag Archives: fruit

Basket case

If you watch Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson with any regularity — and you know I certainly do — you’ve no doubt noticed…

The fruit basket

It’s Craig’s new way to bid guests good-bye.  Instead of an awkward pause or a big cash prize or a harmonica duet, guests are sent on their way with the exotic fruit of their choice.

After Craig makes an innuendo or two.

Well, today I discovered a new fruit that absolutely needs to be added to that basket.  Heck, you could fill the whole thing with ‘em — they are that perfect for Craig’s sense of humor.

Meet the rambutan.

It grows in Southeast Asia, looks like a cousin of the Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors, and is reportedly sweet and sour and slightly grape-like and gummy to the taste.

But I’m pretty sure Craig would just be excited that they look like little hair balls.

Creepy alien-looking hairy balls.

An American tale

Once upon a time there was an apple.

He dreamed of one day being an apple pie on a Thanskgiving Day dinner table.  Or maybe an apple cake for a very good girl or boy’s special birthday.

Heck, he would have settled for a turnover at McDonald’s — gooey, crispy goodness on the run.

But what did life have in store for this apple?

image

Hotel lamp at the Hilton.

Oh well, at least he was in….

ORLANDO!!!!!

Snack attack

I love salt.  Salt loves me.  But is it a healthy relationship?

YES

Turns out many of the salty snacks that I enjoy — and have previously eaten with a side of guilt — actually help lower cholesterol.

What the wha?

Quaker Oats waxes poetic about the cholesterol-reducing benefits of their oatmeal, but I have never seen a Frito Lay ad promote pretzels’ power — but they do the very same thing!

So do nuts and popcorn (sans oil and butter) and homemade potato chips!

And to think I have given the statin I take all the credit for my lowered cholesterol.  Turns out my addiction to salty snacks may have helped just as much.

Okay, maybe not as much…but I sure enjoyed them more.

Fruit and hummus, two foods I eat several times a week, also help lower cholesterol.  Who knew?  I sure didn’t.

Actually, now that I read the list, I’m wondering why I have high cholesterol at all.  It’s certainly not from my diet.  I eat all kinds of foods that help keep my numbers down.

Oh right — I inherited it.  I’d rather have money.

Dole out the pain

You know the pineapple, the international symbol of welcome and hospitality?

A Michigan man used one to knock his wife unconscious at their home last weekend.

When questioned by police, the woman — the pineapple victim — wouldn’t cooperate beyond providing her husband’s basic information.

Leave it to a man to turn fruit into a weapon.  But why pineapple, previously only associated with luaus and fruit salad and tacky bed-and-breakfast decor?

Granted, it’s big and beefy, and the outer shell would leave an interesting mark on someone’s face when it makes impact.  Plus, once you’re finished using it as a battering ram, the outside layer should be easy to cut away…so you can enjoy the juicy fruit within.

Now that I think about it, it’s genius.

Goo goo

What the flarp?

No, seriously — do you know what ‘flarp’ is?

I encountered this word yesterday for the very first time in an article online.  Thanks to the all-knowing, all-seeing Google, I soon learned that flarp is a liquid-like goo that makes a fart noise when you stick your hand in it.

Brilliant.

Flarp no doubt has a lot of admirers amongst the pre-teen set.  But what makes flarp rise above the farts it attempts to mimic is it smells good.  In fact, it comes in no less than six fruity aromas — orange, lemon, banana, strawberry, pineapple and grape.

You can see how that would beat the real thing every time.

Obviously, flarp entered the scene long after my childhood had passed.  When I was a kid, we were all about Silly Putty.  Silly Putty didn’t make any noise to speak of, and it came in only one color/smell combo — putty grey.

You could copy newspaper print and comics with Silly Putty.  Remember newspapers?  That stuff we used to read before the Internet?

You’re using your flarp right now to make fun of me…aren’t you?

Pfffttt!

Anti-pasta

We’re celebrating a good friend’s birthday tonight.  At an Italian restaurant.  In Boston’s North End.

Again.

I don’t want to say that this particular friend is in a rut, but…

Lei è in una carreggiata!

This would probably bother me a lot less if I enjoyed Italian food a little more.  I’m one of those rare individuals who’s just not into pasta.

It’s just so filling to me; I can only handle a couple of fork fulls, and I’m done.  That’s why I only eat it a few times a year…and I can always count on her birthday being one of ‘em.

Don’t get me wrong — I think it’s great that she knows what she likes.  But can’t she shake it up a little — just once — on her big day?  Celebrate the passing years by trying something new…or just something different?

Luckily tonight, there is a unique distraction.  As I eat Italian food yet again, I will be able to turn my attention away from the dread pasta and toward dessert, ’cause it just so happens to be… National Spumoni Day!!

I can easily get behind ice cream….especially spumoni, with its multiple colors, fruit and candy.  Nary a noodle in sight!  (We should always get together for her birthday a few days early.)

But my friend doesn’t need to know.

It is her big day, after all.