The Fresh Fruit Experiment

DH loves fresh fruit. I’m actually not a huge fan. When we shop together, DH has a tendency to want large volumes of fresh fruit. This fruit goes into the crisper drawer of the fridge, and doesn’t see the light of day again until it’s formed a liquid rotted fruit soup mess all over the drawer. Still, every time we go to the store, he wants pounds of grapes and oranges and strawberries, and every time I try to argue that he’ll never eat the fruit, it will just go bad.

Yesterday we went shopping together. We made a number of miscalculations in our shopping trip, namely that we went when I was pretty much starving. I generally have no problems spending only a small fraction of the food budget so that we have enough left over for more pricey wine choices in the $10-15 a bottle range (obviously the nice wine will be going away as we reduce our spending, but it is an appreciated luxury at this point). I turn around from shoveling some bulk dry beans into a bag to find a huge bunch of bananas in the cart. I know what happens to bananas – they turn black and gross and someone in the family ends up making lots of banana bread, which then also turns black and gross. DH sees my expression and says, “Wow, that raccoon is getting really bold, I guess he wants some bananas this week!” (He likes to blame things on the raccoon, like the sudden disappearance of all the cheese in the fridge, or the sudden reduction in pepperoni that was supposed to be used for pizza later in the week.)

When we get home, I decide that instead of putting all the fruit in the fridge, I will make a pretty display on the table. I’d like to claim this was a calculated move, but really I was too lazy to find a spot in the fridge, the countertops were covered in cooking stuff from the last meal, and the crisper drawers were filled with…. You guessed it, fruit getting close to the nasty soup stage. Anyway, it worked. DH has now eaten half the bananas, and it’s been less than 24 hrs. That thing they like to say about if you want to increase your fruit intake, put out a fruit display, apparently it works for some people! I'll let you know if we have to make banana bread this week, but I don't think it's likely!