Daily Dose

Recognising the need for a daily dose of vitamin C to give a power boost to my iron tablets has given me a fresh appreciation for our faithful grapefruit tree. For many a year its abundant fruit has lain unnoticed and largely unappreciated by moi. The odd diligent soul (from a generation 'afore mine) has scored a bagful to make Marmalade and passed us on a jar or two to enjoy but I have ignored them to my peril!!! I was completely ignorant of what I was missing! However this summer we have been ferreting away its sweet, health giving juices into the freezer in ice-block portions that can be melted in a little water at our convenience. We figure we will have vitamin C aplenty to last us until our Mandarin tree is laden with ripe fruit.

My Nana used to give us children grapefruit halves that were sprinkled with sugar for our breaky when we stayed with her in the school holidays. We would scoop out the fruit, a segment at a time and screw up our little faces due to the tart, sharp flavour. We endured it under fascinated sufferance. It HAD to be good for us we concluded! And good for us it jolly well was! An American writer Michael Pollan says: 'Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognise.' Now there's a good tip! I try to gently convince our adult children to take some grapefruit when they call in - insisting on it's sweet juicy-ness but so far they have politely declined. Unfortunately, grapefruit has a bit of a reputation to live down with some, as a 'nasty taste experience'. Well, I do declare I am now quite sold on the fruit! Before the grapefruit we had our own sweet, juicy oranges which have only just finished. Our baby lemon tree is struggling... but they are all lovingly tended by my Darling man so we know what they are being fed and what they are exposed to so we have a personal guarantee of the quality of the fruit. Anyway, I am lately thankful for the daily dose of vitamin C our citrus trees provide us with.

I am challenged by my reading of American author Barbara Kingsolver - 'Animal,Vegetable, Miracle - Our Year of Seasonal Eating' at the moment and trying to do the 'utilise and eat the fruit that is in season' thing a bit more these days. Kingsolver says - "Respecting the dignity of a spectacular food means enjoying it at its best." And "Waiting for foods to come into season means tasting them when they're good..." I am wondering if anyone knows of a similar sort of book based on seasonal eating in New Zealand?