Rediscovery Orange

It had been so long since I had eaten a freshly peeled orange that I had forgotten how good one can be. And, I probably wouldn’t have eating one recently had it not been for the head cold that came my way the week before Christmas. There was a time when a common cold lasted seven days if untreated, and if one went to a doctor it would take a week to get over the cold. I believe my recent head cold lasted twelve days, and I let it run its course except for a couple days in which I took a few Benadryl.

As good as Christmas Dinner was and as many sweets as we had to go with meals or simply to snack on, I really didn’t overeat. Perhaps, my sense of smell was reduced, but the foods I would normally have greatly enjoyed, just didn’t make the grade. Instead of enjoying meals, I came to rely upon snacks to satisfy my hunger cravings. The best snacks I could find were salted nuts and party mix, and an occasional glass of eggnog.

Preparing for Christmas, Barbara bought a sack of juice oranges for use in a fruit salad and for a decorative touch, piercing some and inserting cloves band-like around the oranges. I think Barbara was inspired by a Martha Stewart TV program to reproduce something she had seen her mother do. I think both the oranges and the cloves suffer from such an arrangement, though remaining edible for anyone who can tolerate the mixed flavors of orange-scented cloves or clove-scented oranges. Personally, I try to limit my consumption of foods flavored with cloves to pickled peaches, which is the only food I still enjoy that is laced with cloves. Continue reading>>