Peeling the banana

Who knew the banana could be such a complicated fruit? Or, perhaps more accurately, who didn't know? Really.

Dan Koeppel's book "Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World" is fascinating.

"The more I researched, the more it became clear that there's nothing we eat - that the world eats - more paradoxical than the banana," he writes. "The humble treat we pack into our lunchboxes is among the most complex crops cultivated by humans. In ancient times, the fruit helped the earliest farmers put down roots and establish communities. In the modern era, the banana - literally - has destroyed nations and ruined lives."

Koeppel's segment on "Science Friday" with Ira Flatow on NPR is equally fascinating.

"Plum Gorgeous"

This is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

William Carlos Williams, quoted in Romney Steele's "Plum Gorgeous: Recipes and Memories from the Orchard"

Cookie coincidence

I could not let the moment in Manhattan Beach pass without a picture.