There are usually two types of fruit I routinely keep in the house — apples and oranges.  With respect to either fruit, I figure I can coerce my husband or son to take a piece for lunch or a snack at some point during the day.   I have to nudge them, too, because I keep both in the refrigerator.  I used to have a lovely, inviting bowl of fruit sitting on my counter, hoping that its sheer presence would be intoxicating, and that the guys would fall all over themselves to get there, arguing about which nutritious orb they might want to partake of.

Okay, so maybe not.  But the bowl was on the counter as a physical reminder because I do have to practically wave certain items under their noses to get them to take notice.

But the fruit in the bowl wasn’t getting eaten, and it was too much for me to keep up with by myself.  The bananas got spotty before we’d finish the bunch, and my freezer can only hold so many black bananas with yet another banana bread in their future.  The lemons molded very quickly, and the apples?  Well, it was dismal.

I learned that there are a couple of problems with apples in a fruit bowl.  First, farmers work hard to keep them in cold storage to keep them fresh and crisp, because let’s face it, who likes mushy apples?  Letting them sit at room temperature for days before enjoying them can actually reduce the quality of the apple since they ripen 10 times faster out of refrigeration.  Even more importantly?  Apples emit ethylene which speeds up the ripening of other fruit.  That’s great to know if you have green bananas, or avocados that are rock hard.  But it’s not great if those apples are piled into a fruit bowl alongside many different types of fruit you’re trying to coerce the others in your house to eat.

So I banished the fruit to a basket in the refrigerator, and because it’s not right under their noses and at eye level, there it sits, waiting for me to either snack on it myself (which I do…) or cook with it.  Their latest excuse for not eating is is, “We thought you were going to make something with it!”

Right.  I am not easily fooled and resort to subterfuge to get those guys to eat their fruit.

Apple Blueberry Handpies, anyone?

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