I feel healthier just by staring at Steve's Ho's photo of neatly lined up berries. If only I could live on plump, juicy berries for the rest of my life without the burning desire for roast pork inevitably kicking in.... More

There are Georgia peaches (good), Texas peaches (good) Colorado peaches (very good), and even New York and New Jersey peaches (stellar every so often). But the best peaches, nectarines, plums, and cherries are from California and Washington. I know this may be disappointing to all of you Texas and Georgia natives, but it is the truth. I can prove it to you if you order peaches for your dad from Gold Bud Farms in Placerville, California. They won't be ready until July, but your dad will find it's worth the wait. These are the peaches of your dreams; drippingly juicy with the perfect balance of sweetness and acidity. If it's juicy, sweet, bursting-with-flavor cherries you're after, the folks at... More

Marketman of the always excellent Market Manila recently made guava jam and guava jelly from scratch, and maybe you should too, if you can find fresh guavas near you. Both the jam and jelly go well with cheese, with something as simple as cheddar on a cracker, or as upscale as camembert on croute. If you've never had a guava, they taste somewhere between a pear and a strawberry, which is to say pretty good! Filipino, Mexican and South American groceries might have guavas in fruit form, jams and jellies. If you're really lucky they'll have them baked into pastries; alternately, get Gristedes to sell you a box of Entenmann's Guava Pastries Puffs for $4.69.... More

Oklahoma legislators recently declared watermelon their new official state vegetable—state fruit was already spoken for by the strawberry. State Senator Don Barrington, one of the bill's sponsors, says "Oklahoma Department of Agriculture officials had advised anyone to answer "yes" to the question of whether watermelon is a vegetable or a fruit." [via GirlHacker]... More

A rose by any other name will still smell as sweet, so goes the cliche, but is a durian still a durian if it doesn't stink? Thomas Fuller of the New York Times: "To anyone who doesn’t like durian it smells like a bunch of dead cats,” said Bob Halliday, a food writer based in Bangkok. “But as you get to appreciate durian, the smell is not offensive at all. It’s attractive. It makes you drool like a mastiff.” Nevertheless, a Thai government scientist, who after three decades of research is one of the world’s leading durian experts, now says he has managed to excise its stink."... More

My favorite blog post I've read so far this week is by far the a risk vs. reward analysis of fruit by Justin of Guardedly Optimistic. Here's what he has to say about the humble banana: fruit: bananarisk: lowreward: moderateanalysis: Never a bad choice, the banana is the .290 hitter of fruit. When was the last time you had a surprisingly bad banana? Never, that’s when. More importantly, the banana offers the most easily interpreted warning signs in the fruit family: if it’s slightly green or covered in brown spots, you know you’re rolling the dice. You will most likely never eat a memorable banana, but for a low-risk fruit that pays out solid dividends, you can’t do better.... More