Elliott and Lena have befriended the farmers that live in the valley below our house. Not only do these farmers have pigs, chickens, ducks, rabbits, and puppies (one of which Elliott has named Luigi and really wants to adopt), but they also have a huge vegetable garden and an orange grove. On multiple occasions Elliott has returned home bearing bags of produce and fresh eggs. Farmers are good people to know!
A few weeks ago the farmer handed Elliott a bag of blood oranges and told him that these were absolutely the last blood oranges of the season. Feeling nostalgic for my favorite Sicilian delicacy, I took a few photos as Lena and I ate the final orange.
(Am I being absurdly sentimental? Maybe… but after my friend Desiree moved back to the States, she told me that she can’t get blood oranges there and that its cousin — the Cara Cara orange — costs $1.30 per orange. So I’ll savor these oranges for as long as I can… especially when they’re given to us for free and were picked from trees growing right outside my house!)
“Mmm… bloody,” Lena’s friend Lucas exclaimed the other day as he bit into a blood orange.
“Now that,” commented his mother, “is a unique word for a two-year-old to have in his vocabulary.”
Next winter, Gil, I’ll give you all the blood oranges you want to eat!
Although there were no oranges in my favorite market truck today, it was loaded with other things. I bought ruby-red cherries and the first sun-kissed apricots of the summer. I reached out to touch rock-hard peaches with something akin to reverence; I hadn’t eaten one in almost a year. That is the comfort of eating seasonally: one delicious thing is just replaced by new ones… all year round!
They aren’t in season anymore here, but they have intexpensive Cara Cara oranges here in the states! I was buying big bags of them for like $3.50 at Trader Joe’s.
Trader Joe’s… that store alone is one HUGE reason I can’t wait to return to the States!
I’ve never tasted a blood orange…do they taste a lot different from others? Regardless…oranges right from the tree are the best!
I think they have a lot of flavor and sweetness, Alica, compared to, say, naval oranges. There is a sun-warmed freshness to them as well!
Pleaaaasse can we adopt Luigi?? :-)
If you agree to take him and both kids out on a walk for his bathroom break every two hours or so… then yes, of course we can adopt him! But until you can do that… I’m still thinking about it. :-)
Your market visits seem so fun. I hardly go to the market here anymore because mine usually end up with me sweaty and stressed! haha
That’s why I often only walk about 1/2 a mile to one fruit and veggie truck with one man that I know. The mile-long walk with the stroller to the real market often leaves me sweaty and stressed too!
BEautiful pictures and delicious oranges. It’s always sad when oranges go out of season. One can still buy them at the grocery store, but they’re never as sweet or juicy as during the season. Thanks for your faithfulness in enjoying God’s world :).
So true! And we CAN get oranges year-round at the commissary here… but it just isn’t worth it when everything coming off trucks is straight from the fields and so inexpensive and delicious. I’ll go back to mostly grocery store fruit and veggies only when I have to. I do LOVE enjoying God’s world!
I remember big carts full of oranges in Cairo while they were in season…sweet and succulent and inexpensive. But when they were gone, they were gone till the next year. We learned to enjoy them while they were plentiful.
Mom, maybe my love for oranges straight from the sun-warmed truck has something to do with you starting me off on them so early??
Farmers really are good people to know!! Glad you were able to enjoy the last of the blood oranges… at least until next year! :)