applecatcher

There’s a lot in life that I don’t understand. Things that seem very common to some people, but I don’t get AT ALL.

I love apples. So I buy them a lot. But! They are precariously stacked at the store! What’s the deal with this crazy applestacking thing?! Why don’t they put some sort of barrier or wall at the bottom of the stack?

I mean, they are kinda roundish. Kinda roundish things can roll. If you look around for a good apple, and bump another apple, they all start rolling onto the floor! (This may or may not have happened to me recently.)

Who decided this? I always feel like I’m going to break something when I’m apple picking. They don’t do this with other products...just some of the produce.

It would be like people having to pick out cereal from a bucket. Just a giant bucket of Alpha-Bits in the middle of the aisle. You have to bring a plastic bag to the bucket and start grabbing Bits of Alpha and hope that you don’t drop any on the floor or accidentally lose your phone in the bucket. Then you have to put your kids in there to look for it and make everybody else in the store wait until your kids are done swimming in Alpha-Bits.

Or like having soup come out of a hose. You have to gently turn the faucet on so the soup doesn’t shoot out too fast when you fill a small can that you get at the end of the aisle. Any soup on the floor is just lost! Unless you try to soak it up with a paper towel and squeeze it back into the hose!

Don’t even ask how I got that paper towel! All I can say is that there was a ladder, frozen bacon, and three gum displays.

THAT is what it’s like trying to get an apple from the applestacks!

This is why people don’t eat enough fruits or vegetables. It is impossible to buy them.

But I do it. I put on my baseball mitt and hockey mask and I usually walk away with 3-5 apples.

The mitt is to catch apples. The mask is to frighten other shoppers who want to snag my apples.

I’m off to hose my soup.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

yummy yummy fruit salad tree

Fruit salad trees are a thing. A thing that is real! Totally Real!

I know you think I’m making this up, but I’m not! If you look it up online, you will find that there are FAKE trees that grow bananas and apples and oranges and everything.

These are NOT those. Some tree scientists in Australia can make a tree have different fruits on it. But they do have to be related.

There’s a citrus tree with oranges and lemons and limes and stuff. A stone fruit tree with peaches and plums and apricots. An apple tree with different apples. And a nashi tree.

I didn’t know what a nashi was until today. It’s like the Asian pear.

They make these trees by grafting branches from multiple fruit trees together. The branches will keep growing different kinds of fruit for their whole life!

You can buy these trees and TOTALLY freak out your neighbors! They’ll never know what happened!

They’ll think you’re some crazy fruit scientist and they’ll worry that you’re growing an army of broccoli (not a fruit, but they're scarier) soldiers in your basement and call the CIA to come over and investigate you and then you’ll invite the CIA in for some citrus smoothies that you made using only one tree and your neighbor will feel silly and sit in the shade of their orange grove and look longingly at your citrus tree and wish they could eat something other than oranges but won’t be able to so they'll just sit there peeling orange after orange crying tears of vitamin c onto their “Orange you glad I made fresh juice” sweater.

Or maybe they’ll just come over and enjoy a tangelo. Either way, you have the better tree.

There are also pomato plants. Where they graft a tomato and a potato plant together. You get tomatoes on top and potatoes underground!

Now I know what you’re thinking, “Why aren’t they doing this with humans?”

That’s a good question. And I don’t know. I would love to grow lemons and limes on myself. Hopefully they’re working on that.

I’m off to nashi.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

going bananas for bananas

Did you know bananas are bad for monkeys? Would you ever have guessed that?!

A zoo in England is saying that bananas have too much sugar for monkeys. And the calorie count is too high. Because they eat human bananas.

I honestly had no idea that bananas were grown to please humans. We decided to breed them to be sweeter. I guess they started growing bananas and sugar cane in the same field and made the yummy treat we have today.

Editor’s Note: The science of that statement may or may not be true. Since it was completely made up.

Now that they are off the bananas, they are less aggressive. They also have “thicker and better” fur.

Should I stop eating bananas? I would LOVE thicker and better fur! Who doesn’t want that?!

I like bananas. I also like the word banana. I think it is one of the few fruits that can be used to describe something not fruit-related.

How did it happen that saying something is “bananas” meant that it’s crazy or wild? I’ve never seen a banana do anything crazy.

Maybe I’m just hanging out with the wrong bananas. (Get it? That’s funny because bananas are a hanging fruit!)

More fruits should mean other things. Peachy is a nice one. Why doesn’t apple mean anything?

Like, “No way! You beat Metroid?! That’s so apple!”

I’m going to start using that.

I’m off to have an apple day.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

in the mood for food that's good

Make sure you say "good" like "food" and "mood." It's funner that way.

I sometimes think that I should start my own food blog. Not that anyone reads my non-food blog. And not that anyone likes any of the food choices I make. But, I do often write about my adventures in fooding because every new food experience is an adventure!

Sometimes it ends with a new favorite food. Other times...well...my tummy doesn't like me so much and questions my decisions.

I DID try some new things recently that I encourage you all to do. Today. And again tomorrow.

Apples and hummus! Not just ANY hummus. SUPER HUMMUS! I found this stuff the other day because I was looking to get into hummus. I know I've had it before and I've always liked it, but I never really kept up with it. We casually hung out, but I wanted to make us a little more BFFy. Luckily, I found Super Hummus.

I like to think that if Superman or The Hulk or Wolverine had a hankerin' for hummus, they would eat Super Hummus. Therefore, since I'm part super, I had to buy Super Hummus.

Now that I AM a regular hummuser, I decided to go off the vegetable path and try it with an apple. Bear with me, it gets a little complicated here. It tasted good...after the first few slices. See, the apple had to dry a little before it was good. It started too juicy and that didn't work well with the hummus.

As you may or may not know, I've been experimenting with peanut butter and honey. I love the combination of the two. I also love cinnamon. The word and the spice. One of my favorite things to say is "cinnamon in it."

Go ahead. Say it really fast. Fun, isn't it! I can't stop saying it! Cinnamoninit!

Now I CAN say it all the time! My mom suggested some honey AND cinnamon AND peanut butter on toast. Four of my favorite things combined! My mom is a genius. It is amazing!

And now, if I ever have company that wants a snack, I will make this for them. Wanna know why? I'll show you...

You/Guest: "This is great! How did you get toast to taste so fun?"

Me: "It has cinnamon in it!"

You/Guest: "CINNAMONINIT!"

As a bonus, I just found out that "Toast To Taste" is also really fun to say.

I'm off to toast to taste cinnamon in it.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj

the love apple

Did you go to the 28th annual tomato contest in Boston? WELL! Every year Mary Kassler and Bob Heiss test tomatoes on taste, firmness, color, and shape. I don't know why shape matters. Or color. Or firmness. Doesn't it just have to taste good?

And it's a tomato! They don't even taste good! Full disclosure, I don't actually like tomatoes. I like them only in ketchup flavor.

They even call the tomato the "love apple."

As much as I ADORE the term "love apple," I cannot give that name to the tomato. I actually can't think of anything except the apple that deserves to be called "love apple." Maybe a pineapple? Or banana? Strawberry, probably. Definitely NOT tomato.

I would never eat a tomato like an apple...unless, perhaps, I could not clearly see the produce display and only had blurry colors from which to pick. Then I might, accidentally, pick up a tomato and take a bite out of it. But the shape, color, and firmness would have to trick me. (Now I see why that's judged!)

But of course, that would only happen if my glasses fell into the river.

Which they did.

I was swatting at a bee near my head and BOOP! glasses flew off and into the river!

So if you are showering and some glasses fall out of the nozzle (that's a fun world), those are mine. Thanks.

If you do not return them, I will blame you for all mishaps involving love apples.

And by love apples, I mean gross tomatoes.

I'm off to squint at the produce.

Enjoy Everything.

-dj