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Friday, February 29, 2008

Don´t You Love A Good Piece of Fruit!


Who doesn´t love a good piece of fruit? Ripe strawberries, juicy peaches, succulent plums, crisp apples and refreshing watermelon can make everything around you take a back seat because the taste has you so enthralled in eating.

I can tell you that the pictured basket of fruit pretty much sums up what my stay in Leblon has been like thus far. It has been juicy and sweet.

Juicy and sweet, you ask? Well, not exactly in the way that you may think. I did not witness any juicy, dramatic antics. However, it was juicy in the sense that I have not eaten a more luscious variety of sweet fruit in my entire life! I am serious, people.

Every night, we have sobremesa (dessert) at Nubia and Pascal´s house. The sobremesa is always fruit, and they bring out the pictured dish filled with about one tenth of the fruit from the Amazon Rainforest. We sit with our dessert plates, select as much as we want and then proceed to eat until we are full. (Keep in mind that I am quietly suffering from a fruit binge as I type this entry.)

Since we are in the private company of one another, I will confide in you the extent of my fruit spree for today. I actually dread what I am about to do, but I am slightly a little curious as to the quantity of fruit that I consumed today so I will detail it below.


1. Orange juice nectar (8oz) with my protein powder
2. Two pieces of mango (breakfast)
3. Two pieces of watermelon (breakfast)
4. Passionfruit juice (200 ml) (breakfast)
5. Two pieces of pineapple (breakfast)
6. Plum (snack)
7. Two pieces of tomato (lunch): Yes, tomato is considered a fruit.
8. Guyaba (pardon the spelling if incorrect)
9. 1 piece of mango
10. 25 grapes


I wonder if consuming all of this fruit is worse than having a honeybun? If anyone has a clue, please respond. I saw the fun of eating fruit quickly fade when I had seven grapes left to eat on the bunch that I had this evening. I was in a precarious situation because I had no takers, and I didn´t want to be wasteful. Cleaning your plate, regardless of what you are eating, is never any fun if you are already full.

In conclusion, I have learned a thing or two from my Leblon fruit cornucopia. Ironically, it has nothing to do with being gluttonous.

1. For the fruit lovers out there, I have eated two new fruits, and I find them to be particularly good. They are the caqui and the guyaba. The caqui (pictured above) resembles a tomato but it tastes very different. Secondly, the guyaba looks like a round ball. You must peel the skin off and the interior is red. The guyaba has tiny seed that will break your teeth so pass on chewing them and just swallow them. You will be better off for it!

2. You must always know why you are following the crowd. I say this because a new breed of grape was introduced into the fruit offering on Tuesday afternoon. The grapes were small, had a sweet and sour taste (like muscadines) and contained a really tiny seed in them. Typically, I do not eat grape seeds. However, I heard the repeated crunch across the table, assumed that I should follow suit and proceeded to eat the seeds. During our sobremesa that evening, Nubia had Pascal ask me why I like to eat the seeds in the grapes. I responded that I do not, but I noticed that Pascal was eating them at lunch so I followed his lead. Everyone laughed. Since then, I stopped eating the seeds, but returned to doing so when I learned that the seeds aid in digestion....I know I am waffling on my grape seed stance, but at least now I am not blindly following the crowd. I have a reason.

Boa Noite (Good Night)

Filled-to-the-Brim Qiana :)

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