little LADIES WHO LUNCH

When LLWL asked me to write a guest post I had this terrific idea that we would go in search of amazing local fruits and things to try. We’re in Georgia and there are always roadside stands offering local delicacies like Hot Boiled Peanuts (have never tried them, see required apocalypse scenario, described here) and peaches and sweet Vidalia onions that are so delicious that if you’d ever tried one and then someone later tried to stop you from getting another one you, an otherwise nonviolent person, would stab that person right in the face. And you’d be right to do it. Get away from my onion! And watermelons, oh my heck this state may cheat on standardized tests but you know what we don’t cheat on? Growing watermelons, that’s what. Oh wow, this post will be easy and so much fun. Roadside fruit stands, here we come!

But then we had thunderstorms almost every day for the past week, and I think they scared off the fruit stand people because I didn’t see any all week. Shoot.

Well! We will go to the farmer’s market! Oooooh you know what, we’ll go to one of the BIGGER farmer’s markets that we’ve never been to! And get all kinds of local food and come home and cook it and take pictures and it will make the greatest blog post ever. So we packed into our little car and headed across town to the Decatur Farmer’s Market.

Flaw in the plan #1. My favorite Tex-Mex restaurant is on the way. Yum! Not extremely unhealthy, but certainly not low-cholesterol, low fat, or beautiful to photograph. The kids ate pretty wholesome stuff while we were there mind you: black beans with rice and freshly made tortillas, mostly, but still, it’s not what this blog is about.
Ah well! At least we will get some great pictures of our shopping experience at the glorious farmers market.

Flaw in the plan #2.

I’m not proud to confess that I did sneak a few pictures, but none that were amazing as I’d hoped.

As we moved through the crowded market, gradually I realized problem #3. This market didn’t actually have very much local produce at all. Turns out it’s an international farmer’s market — which, so is the ordinary grocery store. This place had much more variety than any grocery store, but still. Sadly few Georgia-specific prizes.

While I dodged in and out of the crowd sneaking pictures, my husband and the boys picked out several mangoes, a papaya, tiny bananas, an organically grown watermelon, and several exotic fruits and other produce that we’d never tried before. Oh ho ho, wait a second! Now that… that could make a great kid-friendly healthy eating blog post. The kids picked out their favorite interesting looking thing and we bought some muffins and ran home.

So! Here is where the post really begins. It’s called

An afternoon at a friend’s house, trying three new fruits: Dragon fruit, Horn melon, and Cactus pear. If you know what any of these look or taste like, please don’t spoil the surprise for the other readers.

First was the Dragon fruit. My son and his friend love dragons, so this alien-looking scaled artichokey thing was the first thing they wanted to try. The outside is just gorgeous, hot pink with green spikes. We let our son do the honors, and we all leaned around him to see what amazing shades of pink and yellow we might find inside. Ready?

Ha! Nature trolled us! The inside of the deep pink dragon fruit looks almost precisely like Cookies N Cream ice cream.

The kids were thrilled. And the stuff, while it didn’t taste like ice cream, was mildly sweet with tiny edible seeds. They definitely enjoyed scooping it out and making a small mess in the process.

Next up was the horn melon. Look at this thing! It clearly wants to defend itself, right? But the fresh color and interesting and the name MELON had us all eager to cut it open and share the melony flesh inside.

What we found instead was a shock.

Yeah that’s right, this thing is slimy and green on the inside. I don’t think pictures can convey just how closely the inside of a horn melon resembles elephant snot. Uncanny.

After we scooped out the snotty insides into a bowl, we weren’t sure how to proceed, so our friends looked up “How to eat horn melon” on the internet. Oh dear me. It was the strangest eating instructions you can imagine, peppered with casual phrases like “pull the sac between your teeth and suck the juice out, taking care not to crush the inner seed.” and “The exact amount of pressure used to pull the juice out of the sacs is very important.” All of the adults looked at each other, wide-eyed. There were children present so no one said it, but the words hung silently in the air: that’s what she said.

But! Half of the fun was that the kids were so grossed out; they dared each other to try it until finally one brave soul took a spoon and tried some. Oh oh oh. Do you see her face in that picture up there? No points awarded to the horn melon.

Now we were ready for the last contestant: the prickly pear. The kids watched us cut this one open, but at this point the kids were done with our idea of a good time. They ran off to play dragon fruit hunter before trying even one nibble.

But you know what, the prickle pear surprised us too. It had a sweet, delicate flavor, a texture like cucumber, easy to slice, would be yummy in a salad and would look lovely in a bento. Clearly this one was the winner.

But the real winners were YOU, LLWL’s blog readers! Because you survived my post. Congratulations! Now take your kids to the store and buy three crazy-looking things in the produce department. Take em home, predict what’ll be inside, cut em up (the produce I mean, do not cut up your children oh my god), make a mess, eat the mess, and maybe discover a new crazy thing your kids never knew they liked to eat.

Tiffany Ard is the maker of Nerdy Baby sciencey gifts for kids and the blogger of many things.