Fresh fruit

Summertime is great for all the fresh fruit. I was insensitive to fresh fruit in California since it was available year-round. Here, though, really good fruit is seasonal. Right now there's a lot of it -- apples and pears abound, and melons are coming in. Best of all, we have wild blackberries and strawberries growing out on the grounds of The Estate At Louisville, and soon The Wife and I will go out and harvest some of the blackberries, and probably eat them right there in the field until our fingers and lips are stained purple.

Right now I'm eating a Pink Lady apple and a Bosc pear, cut up and soaked in lemon water, enjoyed with a glass of Chianti. Traditionally, I like the red pears better than the Boscs, but these Boscs are really sweet and have exactly the right kind of crumbly-sugar texture that I love in a precisely-ripened pear. The Wife doesn't like pears; she says it's because when she was a kid she was too impatient to wait for the pear to soften so she ate them when they were still crunchy.

I also normally prefer the Fuji or the Gala to other kinds of apples. But these Pink Lady apples are really good, too. I also like the Granny Smith and Pippins a lot. I guess these are all the more tart of the apple varieties; I like the Rome, Red Delicious, and Yellow varieties less since they are sweeter, larger, and less firm.

The sweet fruit goes well with the dry wine; I know traditionally one should have a white wine with fruit but rule #1 of wine drinking is to have what you enjoy, and rule #2 is to have it with food you enjoy. Rule #3 is to share it with people you enjoy, but The Wife is upstairs attending her online class, so I'll have to forego that rule for a while.