Grapefruit Memories

I am ridiculously excited for grapefruit season to be here again!  The Texas grapefruits started coming in at the co-op last week and they're fantastic.  I'm working my way through a giant bag right now!

It was only last year that I started really liking grapefruit.  And if it's not organic Texas grapefruit, I'm not interested (s-n-o-b-b-y).  I remember the first time I had grapefruit as a little girl.  I was in Virginia visiting my Granny Sue and she had some Texas grapefruits (kind of funny that instead of trying Texas grapefruit in Texas, my home state, I tried it in Virginia).  Anyways, it was a little bitter and she sprinkled some sugar over the top.  This opened new doors for me.  I remember spooning the lightly sweetened grapefruit juice out of the rind to get the last bit.  And it felt very civilized and proper to eat grapefruit (a very grown up fruit) alongside my grandmother, probably because my Granny Sue was a very proper lady.

One of my favorite things about grapefruit is that it practically requires its own special spoon.  That just makes it even more fun!  I used to reserve my mom's grapefruit spoons for eating ice cream or weird frozen fruit juice slushy experiments that were too hard.  The sharp sides of the spoon shaved off thin layers to the treats, but it was a little scary to eat with a sharp spoon.  I can't really recommend letting children do this...  Now I have a single grapefruit spoon that I've taken to stashing in my purse after breakfast so that I can have a grapefruit snack at work, too.  Thankfully my mom is mailing a package soon and including a couple of her spoons I so enjoyed using when I was little.

If you're not a grapefruit fan, try the Texas red/pink grapefruits a try- They're sweeter than all the others!  And if you don't like them straight-up, try them in a salad like this.