I have continued my exploration of the produce section in the past weeks, inappropriately fondling vegetables that I do not know the names of as if they were strippers. There’s no dancing pole in the vegetable aisle, which would make shopping more fun. But I didn’t have to tip the stock boy a twenty in his apron string either, so I guess it balances out.

Spaghetti squash

I had never heard of spaghetti squash before, but I’ve evidently been walking past it on my way to the cheese section for years. I cooked it in the oven for about 45 minutes after splitting it in half and placing it face down in a pan of water. Then I pulled it out to scrape out the insides. Those last two sentences sound like excerpts from The Happy Torturer’s Guidebook, but I swear that’s what All Recipes told me to do. The squash comes apart like strands of noodles, hence the name “spaghetti squash.” I ate it with some tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese and it was pretty good. [...]

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I looked around the produce section of my grocery store last weekend and came to this startling realization, “Hey! There’s a lot of fruit here!” When shopping for food I tend to go directly for what is on my list or just grab items that I’m familiar with. I tune out any extraneous data like I ignore most ads in magazines. But ever since my impulse purchase of a starfruit earlier this month, I realized there is a lot of food out there that I have never tried. While there’s nothing wrong with going bananas for a red delicious apple, it occurred to me I might be somewhat narrow-minded in my fruit world view. So, I’ve started trying some fruits and veggies which might be familiar to many of you all, but are as new to me as if I were catching a rerun of a TV show I’d never seen.

First up was the brown Asian pear. A protective white, netted, foam, covered its bottom half, which made it look like it was wearing pants. [...]

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