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Gift Giving Guide for foodies, fruities, veggies, vegans, friends, moms, dads, kids, and weird, awesome neighbors

Fruit Maven — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 22:40:36 +0000

But first… a story!

(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!

Sanguinello Blood Orange

Fruit Maven — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:15:53 +0000

If you like to wear pants with “juicy” on the buns (and you know we all do), then this Sanguinello Blood Orange is the fruit for you!

APPEARANCE 5 out of 5 stars

Fairly small orange, about 1.5-2 inches across. Orange skin with red blushing. Deep crimson flesh that bleeds dark pink juice.

AROMA 5 out of 5 stars

Sweet and perfumy orange. I find the scent to be completely intoxicating.

TEXTURE 5 out of 5 stars

Insanely juicy with just a couple seeds. Soft, giving flesh.

TASTE 5 out of 5 stars

Orange and raspberry fruit punch with perfect acidic balance.

OVERALL 5 out of 5 stars

This is my very first five star review and when I realized that I went back and actually looked for flaws. I couldn’t find them. I completely love this fruit. It looks good, smells good, tastes good, and the juice! Oh my – the juice! Let’s throw in one more exclamation point for the juice! Wowza. Find these where you live and if you live in San Diego go to the farmer’s market and get them. A-maz-ing.

FRUIT

Blood Orange

VARIETY

Sanguinello

PEAK

Winter

GROWN

Sweet Tree Farms
Dinuba, CA

PURCHASED

Farmer’s Market

NOTES

I am so smitten with the juice of this orange that I made a little slide show to commemorate it. I’m not saying its a spectacular slideshow or anything, but I have watched it over and over because I’m a little obsessive and (I’m not sure if I mentioned this already) I LOVE THIS JUICE. You could also juice it with a juice extractor like the Breville Juice Fountain Elite, which will get you a lot more juice in a lot faster time.

WHERE TO GET THEM

You can buy Blood Oranges at some standard grocery stores and local specialty stores and online here. Stores don’t often distinguish between types of blood oranges, but they are all good so you really can’t go wrong. If you get them online, a small amount will go to support the Fruit Maven. So thanks in advance!

The Squeeze

View more presentations from Fruit Maven.

Wonderful Pomegranate

Fruit Maven — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 04:29:35 +0000

If you are trying to avoid interacting with family for a small block of time and are in need of a delicious and tedious task, then this is the fruit for you!

APPEARANCE 4 out of 5 stars

Angular crimson red fruit that has leathery looking skin; small garnet jewels inside divided by a cream colored webbed membrane.

AROMA 5 out of 5 stars

Woodsy and sweet; reminds me of pine and cranberries, so basically it smells like Christmas, which I am trying to hold on to for just a few more days.

TEXTURE 2.5 out of 5 stars

Juicy, snappy little fruit bits with a prominent edible seed inside (technically called “arils”).

TASTE 4 out of 5 stars

Perfectly balanced tart and sweet flavor. Reminiscent of cranberries and grapes.

OVERALL 3.88 out of 5 stars

Pomegranates are just a lot of work to eat. I like them but they just require so much energy and focus that I tend to avoid them. Even after the seeds are all broken out of the web (which is the messiest and best part) they are still a pain with those huge seeds. I don’t like the seeds, so I tend to spit them out and then have to deal with where to spit them and whether anyone saw me spit it, etc. It’s just a bother and I really can’t be bothered with a bother these days.

FRUIT

Pomegranate

VARIETY

Wonderful

PEAK

Fall-Winter

GROWN

California

PURCHASED

Farmer’s Market

NOTES

This is the section where I usually write cool stuff about the fruit (and there is plenty about pomegranates to be found as it is a religious symbol in every major faith, but I am not going there this holiday season. Feel free to go there yourself though — click) but today I just want to list off the amazing vocabulary words and fun phrases I found while perusing the wikipedia entry for pomegranate. Woot woot for big words. Try using these in conversation today. You will seem smarter and I will feel proud. Here we go:
Transcaucasia –Mom! My transcaucasia hurts!
Salutiferous to mankind – If you salutiferous me one more time I’m going to have to smack you.
Carbonized exocarp – Is your carbonized exocarp as bloated as mine is?
Sweet-fatty – Oh that? That’s a sweet-fatty. Don’t touch it.
John Tradescant the elder – Hello, my name is Fruit Maven the Elder. And you would be??

RECIPES

Winter Farro Salad
Guacamole with Pear and Pomegranate Seeds

Moro Blood Orange

Fruit Maven — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:21:57 +0000

If you have a deep, soulful physical beauty that makes tween girls (and their mothers alike) weak in the knees, then this Moro Blood Orange is the fruit for you!

APPEARANCE 5 out of 5 stars

This orange is a bit on the small size; orange skin with red blush, deep reddish orange flesh; pink juice! I’ve seen pictures of these where the flesh is a deep ruby color. I am always hoping for that when I cut into one of these, which only adds to my love for them.

AROMA 4 out of 5 stars

Strong orange with hints of cinnamon and clove.

TEXTURE 4 out of 5 stars

Juicy and soft; easy to eat; very few seeds; peeling it is a pain.

TASTE 5 out of 5 stars

Tastes like cloves and raspberries with hints of orange; slightly sour at times but mostly very sweet.

OVERALL 4.5 out of 5 stars

Love, love, love this orange. This is going to become my annual Christmas stocking stuffer to make the toe look right. It is the perfect size — not too bulgy like a foot with a bunion, but not so small that it looks droopy. Plus kids will love it (as if kids eat fruit on christmas - who am I fooling) because it looks a lot like blood when it is cut and gives bright pink juice. Oh and did I mention it is crazy delicious? No? Well it is. Buy these.

FRUIT

Blood Orange

VARIETY

Moro

PEAK

Winter

GROWN

Unknown

PURCHASED

Grocery Store

NOTES

So if you will notice above, I wrote that this orange smells like cinnamon and cloves. Generally I hate when critics write that kind of thing because it sounds pretentious and I can never seem to identify these elusive spice notes. However, in this case it smelled STRONGLY of cinnamon and cloves. As I poke around the internet, I notice that no one else describes them this way, which leaves me a little puzzled. All I’m saying is I’m not sure how sketchy my reviews are when I can’t smell cinnamon when I’m supposed to but I smell it strongly when it may not be there. You’ve been warned.

RECIPES

Blood Orange Pots de Creme
Blood Orange Salsa

WHERE TO GET THEM

You can buy Moro Blood Oranges at some standard grocery stores and local specialty stores and online here. If you get them online, a small amount will go to support the Fruit Maven. So thanks in advance!

Red Pitaya (Dragon Fruit)

Fruit Maven — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:30:48 +0000

If you’ve been invited to a “Herb the Vegetarian Dragon” party and just haven’t been able to find the right hostess gift, then this is the fruit for you!

APPEARANCE 5 out of 5 stars

Fuchsia body with leaf shaped flaps that fade to green, the inside is white with tiny black seeds; reminds me of a cross between a shiny zebra and a poppy seed muffin. Also it is quite big – the size of a small nerf football.

AROMA 3 out of 5 stars

Cucumbers!

TEXTURE 3.5 out of 5 stars

Juicy and grainy with crunchy little seeds; similar to a cucumber but with more seeds and a little more snap to the bite.

TASTE 2 out of 5 stars

Reminds me of bland melon and kiwi and cucumber, but with a slightly sour note.

OVERALL 3.38 out of 5 stars

I’m not a fan of this fruit and I keep making faces every time I take a bite in order to describe some aspect of it. I had a bit of a red-fleshed variety at a potluck a few months ago and I remember thinking I liked it and wanted to look for it. So maybe this just isn’t a good one or maybe I was just feeling festive that day. I will say that this fruit is absolutely visually stunning and I really do wish I was throwing a party tonight with this fruit as the centerpiece. Oh how my friends would be jealous of me.

FRUIT

Red Pitaya

VARIETY

Unknown

PEAK

Unknown

ORIGIN

Unknown

GROWN

Unknown

PURCHASED

Asian Market

NOTES

This fruit is also called Strawberry Pear. You can see some gorgeous pictures of the plant (it grows on a cactus) here.

RECIPES

Dragon Fruit Salad
Dragon Fruit Pizza