Also, an Enthusiastic is a safe and cozy space to announce something and you know that everyone who hears the announcement is ready and waiting to welcome it in to the world.

How it will work is that I am going to announce my new glittery, sparkly, fabulous fruit book and you are invited to jump up and down in the safe space of your own home and then also comment here and throw virtual confetti and sip virtual champagne with me! So let’s do it.

Yay! FINALLY!!!!!

The book is published and I am sooooooo happy. I would love for you to head over to Amazon and check it out for real. And of course you are welcome and encouraged to buy it and leave a review. It is only available digitally (for now) and you can read it on a Kindle device, or on any Android or iphone or ipad with the Kindle app (which is free). You can even read it on your desktop with a PC reader.

The book is full of whimsical alliterations and silly sounds and contains my fruit loving heart and soul. My four year old has giggled through many of the pages — looking at me in that adorable four-year-old quizzical way, “Kiwano Melons are KOOKY?!?”

I would venture to guess that most people haven’t heard of all 26 of the fruit in the book, though it contains some tried and true favorites like the classic apple and orange of course. After reading through it a few times, kids will be able to identify almost everything they see in the grocery store or at the farmer’s market. And if you have a picky eater like me, I’m hoping it will get her to want to try a few more one of these days. Surely we will get past bananas at some point. RIGHT???

So I’m sending my little fruit seedling out in to the world. May it be received with giggles.

I am thrilled to be participating in the 2012 Share our Strength Food Blogger Bakesale to help fight childhood hunger. The San Diego chapter of food bloggers has set a goal of raising $2500 for the cause and I am happy to be helping out. (If you aren’t in San Diego, don’t worry. Keep reading.)

In the last few months I’ve been thinking about the great chasm between the food I eat and write about ($4 quinces come to mind) and the unsettling hunger that is only a few minutes away from my doorstep.

It started when I was visiting UC Riverside Citrus Variety Collection and looking at the abundance of pregnant fruit draping those trees. We weren’t allowed to take any away and I wondered what happened to it and where it all went. At the time, I was thinking only of myself of course. (And you my luscious readers, and you of course!)

But a few weeks later, I found myself at the San Diego Botanical Garden, which also has an abundant crop of fruit trees heavy with delicious treats. I innocently asked about the intended destination of the ripe fruit (I may or may not have had a couple guavas in my pocket at the time) and found out that it just goes to compost and gets put back in the soil. No one eats it because of the California quarantine. Now I generally understand the agricultural reasons for this. I really do. But for some reason the travesty of this gorgeous and life sustaining produce just going to “waste” rather than filling hungry bellies upset me. I have been trying to figure out how to help every since.

How can I bridge my seemingly extravagant world of exotic produce and the world of the starving person?

This bake sale isn’t the whole answer obviously. But it is certainly a worthy small piece, so I’m thrilled to be offering up a few delights for the cause. On the day of the event I will be making these Peanut Butter and Jelly Kisses and selling them for a dollar each. A single dollar provides 10 healthy meals for a child. Good stuff.

If you are in San Diego, you should definitely come out to Great News on April 28 between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm and help support the event. There will be lots of treats from a few dozen San Diego bloggers, so I’m guessing you won’t leave empty handed!

But for those of you who can’t make it or don’t happen to live in San Diego, I have another option for you!

I am offering up two dozen cookies, made by my very own hands for auction. I will make you any single kind of cookie you would like. Here are some options to choose from or you can put in a request. (Most of these are my favorites and are from Sweet Miniatures by Flo Braker).

• Orange and Chocolate Swirl Cookies
• Peanut Butter Petal Cookies
• Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies (can sub chocolate kisses for the jelly)
• Thumbprint cookies with Pistachios and Apricots
• Autumn Acorns (hazelnut/cinnamon)
• Lemon Laced Gingersnap Sandwiches
• Biberli (a delicious spice cookie with a lemon almond filling)
• Mesquite Chocolate Chip
• Rugelach (walnuts and currants)
• Dried Fruit Pastry Strips (honey, orange and mint filling)
• etc…

Here’s how it works:

1. Leave a comment here saying how much you are willing to pay for the two dozen cookies.
2. Bid back and forth for the next 4 days.
3. On Friday, April 13th at 2:00 pm, whoever has the highest bid will win!
4. I willcontact you and then you can go over here and make your donation on our donation site.
5. I make the cookies and ship them to you! (If you happen to have an event coming up, I’m happy to try and coordinate.)

So get going! I expect to bring in the most money! Don’t leave me hanging.

p.s. To my friends who know me in person and claim they would pay for my cookies — THIS IS YOUR CHANCE. Bid now or forever hold your peace.

The list of fruit trees is pretty impressive and they have chosen some tasty varieties. The Green Gage plum, which I have tragically only tried once at a fruit tasting, has been said to be the favorite and most delicious fruit in the world by pomologist and self named Fruit Detective, David Karp. I would assume he has tasted literally thousands of varieties of fruit. I know for a fact he has had at least 1000 types of citrus alone, which he told us on the tour at UC Riverside Citrus Variety Collection. So his opinion carries some weight.

The list of fruit trees slated for Apples orchards (from City Farmer News) is as follows:

Persimmon – Japanese
Golden Delicious Apple
Gravenstein Apple
Granny Smith Appple
St Edmunds Apple
Pink Pearl Apple
Jonagold Apple
Hudson’s Golden Jem Apple (heirloom)
Belle de Boskoop Apple (heirloom)
Alkmene apples (heirloom)
Blenheim Apricot
Sweet Cherry
Santa Rosa Plum
Mariposa Plum
Flavor King Plum
French Improved Plum
Golden Nectar Plum
Flavor Delight Plum
Green Gage Plum

I wonder what Apple is going to do with the fruit. Will employees be able to just pluck an apple right from the tree on a brisk November day? Or will they be forbidden? How very tantalizing…

P.S. Speaking of apples, I can not wait to see Snow White and the Huntsman this summer. Charlize Theron is such a badass.

(photo is a mashed frozen strawberry heart in milk with a foil-wrapped peanut butter cookie kiss)

So I thought I would share some of the things I do with you. The bottom line is that the more fun and interesting I can make things, the more likely I am to do it. And the more I think about fruit in general, the more likely I am to pick it up at the store and eat it. I’m not driven by really disciplined systems or hard core approaches, though I respect those plans and life styles. For me, I just want my life filled with delicious flavors, fun colors and wacky shapes. Extra points I get to try something new or if I can get someone to do it with me.

1. Make an effort to buy and try one new variety of fruit every week just for the fun of it.
2. Make a game with your kids (if you have them) or friends, to eat a piece of fruit from every color of the rainbow. Create a prize for whoever can get it done first. Post your game on Facebook to motivate other people to eat more fruit. (Also invite me to play along. Pick me. Pick me!)
3. Hold a monthly fruit tasting event to try a few varieties of the same type of fruit.
4. Get more creative with your breakfast: Cut up bananas (obviously), apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, grapes, berries, whatever…and add to your cold cereal or hot oatmeal. They all work really well!
5. Add slices of fruit to cheese toast or a cheese sandwich – both hot (broiled) and cold work. There are tons of great pairings:
   • apricot/brie
   • pear/blue
   • asian pear/cheddar
   • apple/goat
   • apple/gruyere
   • jackfruit/cream cheese
   • cherry/ricotta
   • persimmon/goat
   • berry/mascarpone
   • nectarine/blue
   • orange/provolone (peel oranges, add avocado and balsamic)
   • lemon/mozzarella (no need to peel, just slice very thin and broil)
6. Try the combinations in number 5 in a salad instead.
7. Drinks: Puree or blend your favorite fruit or a combination of fruits and freeze into ice cube shapes. I have heart, swizzle and star shaped trays. Add to your iced tea, water or even a glass of milk. The fruit will melt and blend beautifully and you will have had a serving of fruit without even thinking about it.
8. Dinner: Add slices of fruit to pizza or pasta. Martha just put out an amazing lemon/brussel sprout pizza. Other fun combinations that come to mind:
   • nectarine/arugula
   • pear/caramelized onion
   • peach/prosciutto
   • fig/ricotta

What do you do to get more fruit in to your body? I would love to hear it.

(Or if you just want the gift giving guide, you can get right to it here.)

I have a goofy relationship with holidays. On the surface it doesn’t seem weird at all. I love them! I adore Halloween and Thanksgiving and Hanukkah and Christmas (I grew up in a joint household although now there is some Mormon and some Buddhist action happening, but that’s for another day, another blog because this place is not about religion. Thank you very much.) Back to the point! I love them! But not really. They are always disappointing me. They are like that awesome aunt who has the coolest stuff and shares with you and looks at you when you talk and she seems magical and modern, except that one time when she bought you a fancy lace bra from Paris and you weren’t really old enough to wear a bra yet and it just felt… off. And you realized that her gifts were never really about you at all. Yikes and ewww. (No, this never happened to me, just a story.) So yeah, that’s kind of how I feel about holidays. The idea of them is spectacular but the delivery…not so much.

So I totally opted out of Thanksgiving this year, although I did have pie for breakfast because some traditions just need to be retained and reworked a little. Seems like many days would be better if they just started with pie! And I may opt out of Christmas as well. I’m not sure. But the one thing that I love…that I completely adore to the very tips of my toes is stockings! YAY for stockings. I may ask for a stocking for my birthday next year.

One year when I was five and I was just getting the hang of Christmas delivery methods, I asked Santa for a second stocking (secretly hoping it would also be filled to the brim). And it totally worked! When Santa delivers, he really delivers (at least in the stocking department.) The funny thing at my house, or at least now I know it’s funny because I haven’t really met anyone else who does it this way, is that we did the stockings last. After waking up and opening all the presents one at a time (Gah! Torture!) and after we felt overwhelmed and beyond satisfied, then someone would always remember, “The Stockings!“

“We still have the stockings!!!!!!!!!”

At the tip of the toe, there was always a beautiful Christmas tangerine of course. And there always will be. This year I’m hoping for one of these or these. Yes please.

The stocking was also filled with whole nuts. This was mostly a filler that got shoved to the side, but they HAD to be there nonetheless. Now that I have found these gorgeous red walnuts, I am completely pissed that my Christmas nuts weren’t ALWAYS red. Red is a Christmas color! What the hell? I better get them from now on. That’s all I’m saying about that.

So anyway, I find that people often shirk their duties on the stockings (run of the mill tangerines and boring brown walnuts just as a start) and I am on a quest to remedy this situation. So I put together a list of super awesome, Fruit Maven recommended stocking stuffers. I put them all in the Fruit Maven Amazon Store. How easy is that? I also added my notes about why this or that item is awesome and there is a special “What the hell is this?” section, which is small but disconcerting.

I would love to hear about your favorite traditions, or traditions you’ve flipped around and made your own, or your stocking stuffer ideas. Send it all my way, because like I said. I love holidays!