Oh My Darling Clementine

Short and sweet today, I'm afraid, but I just couldn't let this week come to an end without confessing my severe addiction to that sweet, sweet winter treat... the clementine! 

Every winter our household eagerly awaits the stacks of wooden crates full of clementine-y goodness that appear around the end of November at our grocery store.  I'm not talking about the crates that are there during the rest of the year with those poser fruits.  No sirreee!  Those crates are about $8 a pop, and you'll be digging out seeds once you pry your way through the dry, thin peel.  Nuh, uh... the good stuff only makes an appearance once the holiday season arrives... and the price is usually right too!

Are you like me?  Have you ever eaten the perfect clementine?  If you have, and if you truly are like me, then you have got the taste for blood, and you need more. You will be able to relate to my annual quest for citrus perfection.

You know what the perfect clementine is like... I know you do.  You see it sitting in the crate... its peel is nice and shiny and it looks kind of lumpy, with visible pores (sounds like I'm in the cosmetics industry!).  You pick it up, and it feels kind of heavy for its size.  You slide your thumb under the skin and *squeal*... the peel basically just falls away... preferably all in one piece for all us weirdos out there who like it when that happens.  When you open it up and look at the little segments, there are, of course, no seeds.  Yay!  You pop it in your mouth and delight in the splash of orange-y juice that the perfect clementine yields.

But wait... what will make it the absolute greatest clementine ever for me is if there is a little weensy baby fruit segment in there, attached to a  bigger momma fruit segment.  I peel that sucker off and eat it last!

Oh how I love me some clementines!  And... I feel totally guilt free eating more than one at a time!  All that Vitamin C... woo hoo!  Plus, you know that it just takes one of them to start getting mouldy and then you've lost the whole box in super short order, so you might as well eat them up fast!

I started this post pretty confident that I wasn't the only one having a love affair with this star of the citrus aisle, but now I just think I may be weird.  Am I the only one?  Anyone else out there a fan of this little guy?