Favorite Fruit

I hate oranges but I love clementines unless the bag is tart and then I take it deeply personally and swear off the fruit for a couple months until I find, in my possession, another clementine and it is sweet and it makes me want to cry that we live on an earth that produces something so beautiful and then I buy them every time I go to the grocery store, keeping the bottom right drawer of the refrigerator stocked with the meshy red bag until I get a tart batch and the cycle repeats.

I eat bananas probably more than any other fruit—a combination of their affordability and versatility. When they go brown they become banana muffins or are chopped and stowed in the freezer for a future smoothie. I take them on my oatmeal and my Cheerios and my pb&j crunch wraps but in the summer when my apartment hovers humid, I don't buy them as frequently as I would like and so as an adult with a hot summer apartment, they have come to feel like a winter fruit while the banana hook on the counter collects July dust.

As a child I picked raspberries off a bush in my backyard. We'd sprinkle them on vanilla ice cream or eat them by the handful. The first time I bought raspberries from the store I was horrified at how quickly they molded over and how mushy they felt from the start. That bush isn't there anymore. I don't buy berries very often.

Every time I eat an apple, I spin the stem to find the first initial of the person I'm going to marry—a habit I borrowed from the second graders I once camp counselor-ed. When the stem snaps on "C" everyone in the room partakes in the game. Charlie, Caroline, Christopher, Catherine... In my old neighborhood, I visited the same apple stand every Sunday at the farmer’s market. I bought enough apples for every day that I would run that week and I would eat one habitually while I stretched on the family room floor. I am often unimpressed by store bought apples.

I love mangoes but I hate cutting them. Love watermelon but hate the way I end up sticky no matter how I slice it. Once a friend brought a pomegranate to a breakfast party and after watching her struggle through its undoing, I vowed to never learn. Last weekend, I had babaganoush at a Syrian restaurant in Bay Ridge that was sprinkled with the brightest pomegranate seeds.. almost bright enough to make me think I could manage a pomegranate without mangling.

What's your favorite fruit? Someone asked me recently as if it were a simple answer. As if anything is with me. As if I could explain that bananas are my go-to except in the summer and clementines are a classic unless I've recently gotten a bad bag. That I have deep opinions about apples and that mangoes feel like a special occasion fruit.

No simple answers, I tell a friend who has asked me a question that I should have a simple answer for. I am not known for that. I peel the pith of a clementine with precision akin to surgery.

You have preferences, someone says to me. It isn't a bad thing. 

I used to not be so sure. Except… a long contemplative walk through the produce aisle is between me and my grocery store. The way I count apples is my own little game. Slurping every last bite of mango from the pit, messy as it may be, is messy just for me. 

Six and a half years ago, I had a friend tell me I’m not too much. I’m never too much. I saved it in the notes section of my phone. I reread the exchange over and over. 

Apples are an active fruit. Bananas don’t travel well because they bruise easily. Cherries I’ve only recently discovered I like and I associate them with something eaten over a trash can, just a couple at a time, disposing the pits as you go.

The right people will never make you feel like you are too much. 

I love purple grapes and wouldn’t mind never seeing a green one again. About once a year I remember how much I like pears and I buy them one off at the grocery store, savoring them for a week until they slip from my mind for another however many months. I think dragonfruit is doing too much.

The right people will love into the complicated answers you give for the simple questions.

Pineapple is usually too sweet. Apricots are best dried. A well timed peach can turn an entire day around. 

The right people will learn your preferences, your idiosyncrasies, your contradictions. Not only won’t mind the meandering story that leads to the yes or no answer, but will revel in it.

When I lived in Washington state briefly, my friend and I went to an apple tasting event at a local farm. We sampled more varieties of apples than I knew existed. I was riveted by the farmer’s explanations of the fruit. This one was tangier. This one was better for baking. This one was quintessential apple.  

It almost seemed like there was an apple for everyone. 

It almost seems like there are a million ways you can be someone’s first pick.