fruity fun

Work is seriously getting in the way of my blogging. I was so busy yesterday that I completely forgot to even open my blog much less write anything. I need a less time consuming job. Of course then my visa would be invalid and I would have to leave India and wouldn't have anything left to blog about so I guess that kind of defeats the whole purpose.
Anyway...one of my favorite things about living here are the fruits. Everywhere you go there are people selling fruits. There are the guys with their carts that go through my neighborhood every day. There are markets with bigger stands and the fruit wallahs (the fruit cart guys). The fruit is always so fresh and almost every cart and fruit stand is empty by the end of the day. My favorite fruit here is, of all the boring things, bananas. They are just a little bit sweeter and sooo yummy.
But, my real favorite part about the fruits is how, with the exception of a few basics, like bananas and apples and oranges, a lot of the other fruits rotate in and out depending on if they are in season. This happens in other places, of course, like I remember being in Munich when the asparagus was in season and it was everywhere, but you could still get asparagus out of season, it was just imported or made in greenhouses. Here either have it or they don't. Like when I arrived it was mango season, every fruit stand was overflowing with mangoes; then all of a sudden mid-September they were gone. The mango specials at restaurants were gone, there was not a mango in sight. Then about 3 weeks ago I started seeing a few mangoes here and there and now they are back everywhere. I also noticed this new fruit about a month ago, sort of cantaloupe sized but a dark green with orange stripes. I had never seen it before and suddenly every fruit wallah had them. After some investigation they are apparently a melon kind of like honeydew. I haven't bought one because I'm only one person and can't eat a whole melon, plus I only have one good knife which I don't think could cut through it (I miss my good knives!). And this weekend suddenly I saw HUGE black olives being sold. I've never seen them before here - which I consider a good thing as I'm definitely not an olive person - but suddenly there they were and they were all over the place.
While I do sometimes miss certain fruits and there is something nice about always being able to get what you want, it is extra nice to know that the fruit you are getting is fresh and was very likely grown here in India and picked just a day or two ago.
Now I'm really craving some fruits, I think I'll have to visit my favorite market after work today and stock up.