scout, my kingdom for a juicy orange. I packed my lunch today, and I gave today’s orange a good talking to. I’m a little nervous - there’s a spot of green on it, plus it’s riding the coat tails of its traitorous brother. I don’t get it. I bought a bunch of navel oranges two weeks ago, and they were incredible. This batch must be canadian or something.
I have to admit, I’ve had some pretty darn good oranges as of late. Went to a baseball game on Sunday, and ate one in the car. Got juice all over me on the way over.
Upon review, my poem above sucks. My verb tenses are all wrong. If I may be so bold:
Dry Orange, How I Loathe Thee (the Remix)
Bulbous and orange,
I choose you from amongst a stock
of your proven brethren.
Riding high on anticipation,
and low in blood sugar,
I eagerly and deftly peel you in one swath.
Meticulously,
Carefully,
Lovingly,
your delicate undergarments fall away.
Your purses of pulpy presence present
themselves, linked, side by side.
I accept your offer.
But alas, you are nothing but a crappy dry orange.
Boy, this makes me feel marginalized, because (get ready for it) I really LIKE dry oranges. There’s something about the texture thatjust delights me. I guess I’m a freak.
Has anyone ever had dried orange rinds? I used to like habing them when I was a kid. For some reason, I don’t have them much anymore. They’re really good, seriously.
Ok, a phenomenological defense of the joy of eating dry oranges; a Geertzian deep-reading:
When one eats an orange one of the most enjoyable characteristics of the fruit is the presence of those small cells, semi-independent bits within each wedge-like section that can be torn away from each other-- some of the pleasure of an orange, if one really takes the time to studiously eat it, is picking these little bits apart from one another without bursting the membranes, which one can then break down at will with a satisfying ‘pop’, squishing the pieces between the teeth or teeth and tongue. In fact, I like to use my teeth to first remove the waxy thick membrane that envelops the two large sides of each wedge-shaped section so that I can really reduce the interior to little bits in this manner. A dry orange removes a lot of the liquidy, confounding loose matter from this procedure, leaving one with a very clean and clearly understood textural experience. I also like the experience of peeling an orange with a loose peel in huge hunks-- there’s something really satisfying and rewarding about that.
This probably doesn’t convince anyone, though. Bastards. You all probably like really ripe, brownish bananas, too, instead of the nice greenish-yellow tart ones.
LolaCocacola, I dearly love juicy peaches as well. But I can only get them in the summertime, at local farmer’s markets. Whenever I buy them in a supermarket, I can always count on having one side rotten and the other side hard as a rock, no matter how careful I am to rotate them and ripen them equally. Am I doomed to substandard peaches out of season?