beXnlog

Fruit n Cheese but no Beef

During our green tomato search at the Farmers' Market on Saturday, we picked up a little basket of sugar plums because neither of us had eaten them before. It's summer fruits season and plums are totally sweet and juicy now. One of the vendors was selling all sorts of medium and tiny plums in colors ranging from bright creamy yellow to almost-pitch black. The sugar plums essentially looked like big red-purple cherries about 1" to 1 1/2" across. Inside, they were a clear orange-red with a seed the size of regular plums. Each one was about 2 bites and very sweet!

We also bought a bag of purple and white striped baby eggplant for $2.10. I actually didn't like eggplant until very recently. As a kid, my mom would pan-fry Italian eggplant slices filled with ground beef and force us to eat it*. It was the grossest, yuckiest thing: soggy floppy oily eggplant slices and tough ground beef in the middle. I hated eggplant from then until be broiled some slices marinated in olive oil and basalmic vinegar a few summers back. Then i saw the light. We both love white eggplant, which has a firmer texture and sweeter, less bitter taste than the big royal purple Italian eggplant. The thinner, light purple Chinese eggplant is less mushy and has a good skin, less tough than the white. I'm not sure how the purple and white will turn out but they sure look attractive. And who doesn't love baby produce?

More grapefruit soda challenge: IZZE, made with real fruit juices and no added sugar, makes an absolutely delicious and fragrant version. be and i tried it in the little cans after his IZZE pear soda, which really captured the essence of "pear" in a bottle, just like how Jelly Belly's pear jellybean is so pear-like, you can feel the grit and texture of the real thing. I've had so many grapefruit sodas over the past few weeks i think i need a once-and-for-all taste test. Is anyone down to check out the Ting, GuS, Jarritos and IZZE grapefruit sodas with me? I love the smell of grapefruit and the bittersweet taste has really grown on me over the years.

Lastly, be and i hosted a small fondue dinner tonight with two kinds of fondue (traditional Swiss and "Pub" style with cheddar), baby greens salad with homemade croutons and fruit for dessert. Alongside the fondues, we served Parisi Italian bread, rye bread, sauteed button mushrooms, fake cocktail sausages, red potatoes, Granny Smith apples and cornichons. Our friends brought yummy things like ice cream, mini cheesecakes and Persecco. Aside from technical difficulties with one sterno contraption, it went well and was a fun Sunday night!

*I also hated, and still hate bell peppers to this day. My mom would hollow out a green bell pepper, fill it with ground beef, bake it and make us eat it. I remember the strong taste of the bell pepper which permeated everything, the tough ground beef and how it all fell apart when you tried to get into it. I guess i just always hated ground beef-filled things. Otherwise, my mom is a great cook. Just not her beef-filled items.

posted by beXn @ 12:17 AM