One of our things is to try new fruit. The older I get, the harder this gets. I find that interesting. I find it interesting that as I get older I actually start to reject new things. I never wanted to be like that but it sneaks up on me.
However, when I was a kid my mother and I started doing this. From time to time when new and weird fruit came into our produce section my mother would insist we try it. That is how I learned about ugly and star fruits.

This makes me really cool at parties. 

So I do this with my kids. Our single most interesting find of all time came from my close friend Yael in England. Yael called me as she had discovered a fruit she'd only ever heard of and she wanted to try it with me. She'd found it in the middle of an Arab fruit market on a side of town I'd never be caught dead. When we opened the fruit and discovered how incredibly weird the inside was I will never forget her saying (keeping in mind English was not her first language so she often meant something else or something deeper than the way it came out) "this fruit is so...so...organic." She didn't mean naturally grown, what she meant was the fruit was alive. This is one of those duh moments where you say to me "well yeah, that's kinda the nature of green growing things." No, this fruit was alive in the way that alien seed pods are alive. The way that you worry you'll swallow a seed and wake up with vines growing out of your mouth. The fruit was fantastic. It tasted lush and it produced tens of pounds of flesh for us to juice, find things to do with and to eat. 

Every time since then I become a little afraid of our fruit of the week I remind myself of that gorgeous creature we ate that day. Then, I tell myself it is all good practice for when we end up on another planet living as slaves or colonizing. The red grass of Gallifrey and all that.

We used to do a new fruit once a week but eventually, short of traveling to exotic countries we run out. One night we had to settle for Jumex's gaunabana nectar. Failing actually finding a gaunabana to eat.
Okay repeat after me gaunabana do do do do do, gaunabana do do do do, gaubanana do do do do, do do do, do do do, da do do, do do, do do do do do!

Last night walking through the produce section I was entranced by the most lovely citrusy smell you can imagine. There I found moro oranges.

Also known as a blood orange. I threw a bunch in the cart and while my husband seemed happy I'd found something to entertain myself he seemed bemused that they were marked California. I mean everyone knows moro oranges only come from Italy. We had a long talk about the fact that America produces its own citrus fruits and I came home with the find for the kids.
Leif shouted "Are those blood oranges!? Can we eat them?!" I said "yes they are, yes we can" then I pondered how he knew about blood oranges. Sims Castaway of course. Who said video games aren't educational?

Our fist orange

Trying to smile with her mouth full

This color was actually true, it did look like that on the inside. Some of the others were lighter, or varying in color.

As the kids tore into the fruit I began to wonder whose bright idea it was to call them blood oranges, I mean so appetizing. Then, I told myself, we're on an alien planet and hey, they smell freaking gorgeous.
The kids loved them and ate them all down quickly, almost too quickly to get a picture and I thought, hey look - I've succeeded in something in this weird parenting maze.

My last thought, as the orange disappeared and I still had the flavor in my mouth was "now I want Sangria! And it's summer!"