Tuesday 24 April 2007

Mandarins, Oranges And Chocolates

Some people believe that, simply because of the name of this blog, I am solely an orange juice drinker and an orange eater. This is a misguided belief. Never judge a book by its cover, or a blog by its URL.

It's utterly ridiculous, because even though I'm passionate about oranges, they could not be my sole source of enrichment. Like every human being, I need variety. It's vital to my soul, vital to my knowledge, my imagination, my existence on Earth, my happiness, and especially vital to regular bowel movements.

Lately, mandarins have been going into my system just as often as oranges. Orange Juice Snob turned Mandy Muncher. My verdict on mandarins right now is they are good. Very gooooood.

As an employed person right now (gosh I love saying that) I find the mandy extremely great for portability - no messing around with a knife, not much juice squirting, just a simple peel and eat. Mandy's are to oranges what individually wrapped Kraft Singles were to block cheese - without the funny plasticky processed taste.

I give the mandarin a Special Gold Star Award for Innovation and Practical Creativity By A Fruit - coming up with a delicious citrussy flavour that is similar to an orange, but managing the individually wrapped slices inside an even larger, portable, and aesthetically pleasing, easy to carry, easy to unwrap, orange peel. Well done!

Next, the hot chocolate.

Caught today in the pouring rain, I ducked into a busy cafeteria, cold, where many were having coffee or tea. Why is it that there is such an array of coffees and teas, but only one way to do an orange juice?
Cold as it was, I pleaded for a hot beverage, and was served up a hot chocolate, complete with little chocolate sprinkles in frothy milk and a marshmallow on the side.

Now - that felt good! Sweet, satisfyingly warm, right to the bottom of my stomach!

I give the Fill 'Er Up, Baby Award to the hot chocolate, for most adequately substituting an orange juice in cooler weather.

And now for the thank you speeches ...

5 comments:

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

If you try buying orange juice in Italy, you're most likely either to get something orange and fizzy or the juice of the blood orange, a ruby red. The idea of orange juice not being orange (or juice, in the case of the fizzy business) is a little disconcerting.

Friendless said...

I find mandarins do have that funny plasticky taste.

Maria said...

Friendless, have you been peeling them before munching them?

Anonymous said...

Yes, I do find a problem sometimes with the freshness of fruit: a mandarin can feel pretty soft but once you unpeel it, occasionally it's tough and dry inside. Not sure if that's due to it being old fruit or maybe out of season perhaps? It's certainly useful to know which fruit are in season at which particular time. Though regardless of the season I'm always on the lookout to squeeze a pair of ripe melons: do you have some to spare?

Maria said...

Mr Coffee has had to be quite happy with pancakes, Apache.

Red fizzy orange juice? There must be some law against false packaging. I'm compiling a lawsuit against a fruit market that sold me a grapefruit that didn't have grapes in it and a raspberry that didn't rasp, and this sounds like one of my strongest cases ever - please post details!