Pears

One of the things from home that I miss most is the tropical fruits. Sometimes I get bored eating the fruits here but thankfully, my favorite fruit - oranges - are available all year round and almost everywhere.

During late winter, as spring is around the corner, peaches and plums are very popular but I don't favor plum very much because some of them tend to be sour. As the summer approach, cherries and berries are the fruits of the season. I love bing cherries but they are a tad too expensive for fruits. Strawberries then is my next choice and the best way to eat them is to dip them in chocolate. Yum yum..

When it comes to Fall, apples are all over the place in grocery stores and farms but I don't like apple. Some of them is nice when it's crunchy but they are definitely not my fruit of choice. In fact, the last time I went apple picking, I gave all of them to my lab-mates. I prefer the crunchy, juicy grapes but too much grapes make me feel bad. There are also watermelons and honey dew but I don't really feel like making a mess in my kitchen since the biggest knife I have can hardly reaches the middle of the watermelon here. They are huge!!

While all these fruits are available according to the season, oranges is what I buy all the time. But sometimes, I can't help craving for guava (especially the pink guava - jambu air - in rojak sauce), mangosteen, rambutan, ciku, star fruit and pears. There are pears here but they are the green, hard and less juicy ones. I like the yellow pears we get at home - also known as 'la ya' in Hokkien. It's so juicy and sweet that I could eat pears all day long and not have anything else. Mum used to go to Bandar Sunway market when we were staying at Sunway and buy lots of them and it'll be gone in 2 days. They usually come in a basket of 10-13 and it only cost RM3-4. It's the best fruit when you're hot and thirsty.

When I saw this Korean pear at the Korean market yesterday, I just can't help putting a few in my basket although it cost USD1.50 per pear. Can you imagine that??? But I told myself it would be a nice treat for myself since I haven't been spending much over the past week. Furthermore, that's the first time I've seen it in Michigan. Of course, if I had brought a bigger luggage to San Francisco, I would have bought back a dozen or two of it. Keke..

But I'm just so happy to be able to eat the pears (they even come in the white spongy wrap like the ones we find in the market back in M'sia) that I just don't see the ridiculous cost of it yet. It is still not as good as the yellow pear we get at home but this is close enough for now. Hehe..