Currants & apricots, our latest fruits.
When I was young we visited friends of my parents who lived in San Francisco. I remember three things about this visit. First, that they had chosen not to have children, and we had been cautioned not to touch anything, not even the walls. This seemed very difficult to me and I felt like the woman was watching my every move, and maybe she was. Second, we drove down Lombard Street to get to their house, and I can still see the steep hill, the curvy switchbacks, the flowers (geraniums?) planted along the narrow road. Third, I was offered an apricot by the woman. I had never seen one before, never tasted one. I didn't feel adventurous in the slightest, and I turned it down. It was many years before I tasted a dried apricot, and then many more before my first taste of fresh apricot, which happened just a couple of weeks ago. I don't know what I expected, but I was surprised to like it, and enchanted by its small peach-plumminess.
Yesterday I bought a package of them and gave them to the kids. They all liked it, but just as with so many other first tastes of things, they didn't want second bites.
The currants were another story. I think I've tried them before, and I know I've had them dried in baked goods, yet they still hold some sort of curious, exotic Englishness about them. Odd? Put it down to being a silly American. I couldn't resist a beautiful, nearly-transparent bunch of them and brought them home. Griff said they were tart. I liked the flavor but not the seeds. Dan declared that they were inconsistent from berry to berry, and that "more often than not, they taste like dirt." Hardly a ringing endorsement, but still, they're so pretty, and I'm sure I'll find some use for them.
