Summer fruits. . . . .

One of the best things I love about Summer is the wonderful fresh fruit that becomes available. I know we can buy most fruits all year round these days , but there's certain times of the year they just taste better because they are more in season and not 'force grown'. Strawberries are a good example. When I lived in England you never saw strawberries in the stores in winter, but come spring and summer the market stalls and grocery stores started overflowing with them, and ooooooh they were SO sweet and juicy (as I know Sadie can attest to). They used to be my all time favorite fruit, until I moved to the US! I hate to say it, but even in summertime the strawberries just don't seem to taste as sweet as I think they should. But all that aside, I still love to eat lots of fresh fruit at this time of year.

And so, in order to have everyone else (by which I mean J and K!) eat more of it I put out a bowl of fruit while we were eating dinner last night. And here it is. . . . .

I know many of you will have tried this - scoop out a melon using a melon baller and use it as the basket then add the melon and other fruits back in to it. I must confess I don't know if I've actually ever done this, and if I have it's been years since. I showed this to Kristen and her eyes lit up :-) As you know she loves watermelon, it's her favorite fruit actually. But she's never had it as little balls. And the orange? well usually I will cut slices and then cut the slice in to quarters, but all she's done recently (all she's ever done, cos it's not a fruit she cares for) is squeeze the flesh between her teeth to get the juice out. Well last night I cut the orange like you see the chefs on tv do it. You know, where you cut away all the skin and white pith, then you insert your knife in between the membrane so you have no skin on the segment at all - new discovery, that's how to get Kristen to eat the orange flesh! She loved it..... and I have to say one more thing, Jason was actually diving in to the bowl too and said "just seeing it made him want to eat it". And he's not such a big fruit eater either! I know they say "you eat with your eyes" and it was certainly true in this case.

We had huge thunderstorms here last night and a tornado watch was in effect. There's no sunshine today (yet) but it's still forecast to be at least 85. I'd just like to say thank you to Sadie for sharing a sweet summer graphic (ooh and that's another fruit I love. . . fresh pineapple!)