Saints Preserve Us

And so as threatened on Facebook, what happens to the good fruit.

The normal thing was for Mom and Dad to eat them of course. Fruit in bowls. Tomatoes on hamburgers, BLTs, with green beans, roasted in the oven, or used in spaghetti sauce.

But Dad can't leave thing simple.

He made peach ice cream. He may have made apricot ice cream too, I'm not sure.

Then there was the attempt at making brandy. Now back in the 70s wine was really starting to become big. And my parents were expanding their palettes. One of Dad's creations was a wine punch which is very similar to a sangria. Now when you make this you use jug wine, and we used what Mr. Welles hawked, so after the parties were over, we had big green empty wine jugs.

I don't know the recipe for making these brandies, but I'm sure it involved a little yeast and maybe even some other brandy to start. But the main ingredient was fruit. and they had lots of peaches and plums to experiment with. Now the wine jugs had screw tops, and that kept them pretty much air tight. And dad had two of the jugs on his work bench in the garage.

The liquid was cloudy with pulp and the yeast, and we just let them ferment.

Again, I don't remember if we heard the mini-explosion, but I do remember going out into the garage and things being sticky, and there being a lot of broken glass. Now only one bottle was destroyed, and Dad took care of ti for a long time.

He or Mom will have to comment on if any of it still survives. I know he used to strain it once a year, and give out little tastes.

Ooh, That Smell...

This morning I was making my lunch for the day, and went to the fruit bowl for my apple (man, that's still hard to spell right).

Under some tomatoes and a couple plums was a nectarine that had gone bad. Right on top of my apples.

Two of the apples had gone bad as well, and the plums were pretty ripe.

As I was cleaning up the bad fruit and washing the bowl, the smell of rotting fruit gave me a mini-flashback.

Between the ages of 7 and 12, the house I lived in had several fruit trees and a garden. An "ornamental" plum tree that produced huge amounts of small plums every year. Then in the back were an apricot, a peach tree, and an orange tree which were no less prolific. In between the peach and apricot was the garden. And my parents' favorite thing in the garden? Tomatoes.

Mine was artichokes, but we never let those rot.

Not that we let the other stuff rot, it was just that birds don't eat half of an artichoke and then throw it on the ground. Artichoke plants also don't get 15 feet tall producing divine tasty treat beyond the reach of the harvest boy and his trusty fruit plucking basket on a stick.

So my spring and summer chores were to pick up the rotting fruit from the garden, yard, and sidewalk.

And my parents wonder why I don't like fruit.

Then there was the day in college when one of the other geology students came in with a grocery bag of tomatoes. She offered some around, and then proceeded to spend the day eating them like apples. Of course they were getting bruised at the bottom and were leaking juice. I had to make sure that I didn't sit close to her that day as the smell was making me nauseous.

Mom and Dad's luck continues to run true as their latest house has a large persimmon tree in the front yard that has proven immune to Dad's dormant spray. They've talked about cutting it down, but it's a nice shade tree for their front yard. So if anyone out there like persimmons, just drop by for a visit when they're in season and you'll be sent home with bags.

Yes, bags. Plural.