I'm thankful for grapefruit

Grapefruits have been so expensive the past few winters that I've refused to buy them; of course it helps that my sister brings me a couple of bushels of them when she returns from Texas, and those are free. I know I'll be eating my fill in the spring.

When I was a child, my mom would cut a grapefruit in half and then sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar on each half. I thought that was the way they had to be eaten.

Sometime after I grew up, I discovered the natural sweetness of grapefruit. I learned to peel them, take the membrane off one section at a time, and eat them that way. This isn't something I'd do in public, since it requires that I stand over a sink; I imagine that's how monkeys would eat them, face buried in the fruit and juice dripping off the chin.

For some reason, grapefruits have been on sale the past two weeks, as cheap as I've seen them in years. I bought some at our local store for twenty-five cents apiece.

They're not nearly as good as ones picked fresh off my sister's Texas trees, but they'll have to do until she comes home.

I just found an interesting bit of history about grapefruit: "A relative newcomer to the citrus clan, the grapefruit was originally believed to be a spontaneous sport of the pummelo (q.v.). James MacFayden, in his Flora of Jamaica, in 1837, separated the grapefruit from the pummelo, giving it the botanical name, Citrus paradisi Macf. About 1948, citrus specialists began to suggest that the grapefruit was not a sport of the pummelo but an accidental hybrid between the pummelo and the orange. The botanical name has been altered to reflect this view, and it is now generally accepted as Citrus X paradisi." (I found this information HERE.)

So, I was probably at least four years old before my mom gave me those halved grapefruits!

Cliff isn't supposed to have over two grapefruits a week because he takes Lipitor, but he never ate many of then anyhow. He doesn't like messing with any food that leaves him with sticky fingers. Plus, he thinks it's too much work to peel them. The man isn't lazy when it comes to work, but he really doesn't like to work for his food.

Any type of fruit that grows in Missouri has to be picked in a two- or three-week period, once a year; so I was amazed when I learned that fruits can be picked from a grapefruit or orange tree all winter long. My sister starts eating hers when she arrives in Mission in November, and she picks the final ones off the tree in March or April when she heads north; wouldn't you think they'd rot or something, hanging there so long, ripe?

And that's my meandering for this afternoon.