[2] #16: Fruit Salad

For a reason established long before I arrived on the scene and rarely explained to summer staff rookies, the Wiggles have a chart-topping hit at Camp Mini-Yo-We. In league with most of their music, the song is repetitive, instructive and disturbingly catchy... You will never see fruit salad in quite the same light after watching it through, but to get the full appreciation for the power of this tune you really need to show up in the summer, just as Boy's Camp is having their cook out. Boy oh BOY do those boys blast this song. It's boggling.

While this little anecdote definitely inspired the title of this post, the general idea came from a different era of my life. In the last days of my elementary school career, my teacher introduced me to a foreign fruit with such impact that the experience of it has been burned into my memory like a scratch-and-sniff tattoo. The durian. 

When ripened it has so pungent an odour that it is forbidden in many public transit systems, hotels and apartment buildings around this world of ours. The smell has been described politely as "distinctive" and less so, according to Wikipedia, as "rotten onions, turpentine and gym socks," which is why, of course, I am so eager to eat it again. Unfortunately, Durian is a bit hard to come by in Muskoka (as in, impossible). When spring returns, I will make my way back to the Chinese market at York and Queen, and I will most certainly invest ten-ish dollars into one of these spiky sweets... but in the meantime I have broadened this goal to one that can be accommodated north of Toronto.

For many years I have stared at boxes of pomegranates with a blend of confusion and awe. This pomme-grenade infatuates and infuriates; it is both delicious and difficult to eat. I'm glad that I began my little kitchen adventure with this video - it absolutely saved me a lot of time. Ate seeds for a few hours, juiced the rest (half and half with orange is divine), and tried adding the pulp to breakfast-for-dinner pancake mix (which did not work - SO gritty). All in all, a happy new-food experience!