During the summer, the farmer's market basically gives me an anxiety attack. There are truckloads of berries and stone fruits, and they are only in season for like a minute and a half. Because the fruit is so delicious, I am morally obligated to eat as much as I can while the getting is good. This gives me a false sense of urgency. Oh my god! It's here! Summer fruit! I have to eat BARRELS of summer fruit OR I HAVE WASTED MY ENTIRE SUMMER!!! (By the way, I remain surprisingly calm during emergencies).
If I don’t buy lots of summer fruit, I feel guilty; so I load up on pluots, peaches and nectarines. I cart the fruit home, feeling virtuous, and then I don't know what to do. Should I put the fruit in the fridge? Or leave it on the counter? And shit, is this plum already ripe? Or should I give it a day? It feels as if there's just a two-hour window for optimal-ripe-but-not-overly-ripeness and that two-hour window always happens during the dead of night.
And to make matters worse, I always, always, always buy too much summer fruit. It goes in the produce bin in the bottom of the fridge, and I forget about it. It ripens, over-ripens, and then languishes for several days until I remember: holy shit, I bought peaches! By then, the fruit is rotten and this makes me feel even more guilty. There are hungry people everywhere, and I can’t bother to eat my peaches.
It’s a vicious cycle: buy summer fruit because I must celebrate the season; forget to eat pricey summer fruit; feel guilty because I am wasteful; buy more expensive fruit that no one will ever eat; and repeat until the end of summer.
Now that summer is over, I feel relieved. I can just buy some bananas because JFC, all I want is a banana. This afternoon, I ate an apple and you know what? It was amazing.
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