on bananas and buffalo and blackberry sorbet
My freezer is pretty empty these days. I took some time to actually clean it, toss out all the freezer burned edamame that Ant left me when he moved and the containers of stuff I cooked a year or two ago but have since forgotten what it actually is or was. So now there's a container of blackberry sorbet and there's about 7 bananas and there's still that 12 pounds of buffalo.
I can teach you a lot about me just by telling you what's in my fridge.
Let's start with the bananas. I like my bananas to be a little spotty. Not too spotty, but not at all green either. I don't tend to buy them too often, but when I do buy fresh fruit, I always buy too much--especially bananas. I get kind of excited about eating them; just the smell reminds me of being a kid, of opening up a brown paper bag at lunchtime and finding a bologna sandwich, a snack pack and a banana. I like the way the smell of the banana overpowered the smell of the bologna--at least, it does in my memory.
There's always a waiting period after I buy my banans. I have to let them sit a while before they ripen enough. That usually takes about 4 or 5 days, because you can never find spotted bananas at the store. So by the time they're ready to eat, I have to eat them quickly or they get over-ripened, over spotted and really sugary. But I can only eat so many bananas in a day.
And so I'm left with some--usually two--bananas that I don't know what to do with. I feel sorry for them, if you must know. I feel sorry for their plight, how I led them to this demise. So, to make up for the way I've treated them, I stick them in the freezer, with the promise of making banana bread one day.
But that never happens. It's sad, maybe even tragic, but that's how it goes. That's the life of a banana in my house. Like I said, I feel bad about the whole thing, but what can I do?
The buffalo is another story--a metaphor, really. I got it from my folks this Christmas. They live 3,000 miles away and we don't talk all that often and so they don't really know much about my life at all. Obviously they don't know that I rarely eat red meat any more (yes, John Paul, my chicken fried steak days are over). A burger from time to time, or the occasional winter meatloaf, but that's pretty much it.
So the buffalo (or bison, as the label calls it) sits in my freezer, right next to the bananas. A reminder of who I am, and the life my family doesn't know about. I'll likely pass it on to my friend Mike the Carnivore. He likes meat, and I have a feeling he wouldn't mind eating this stuff. I like that it's going to a good place, but I'm still not sure what to tell my folks. What should I say when they ask about the meat? I can't say I enjoyed it; that might lead to more meat-type gifts. And I don't want to hurt their feelings.
The sorbet--that's a different story altogether. I told you I'm sick, and I still am. Robin brought me the sorbet this afternoon, along with an Odwalla, some chocolate and some tulips. She also dropped of a book I'd left at her house, and a movie. The sorbet, what's left of it, sits all by itself in the front of my freezer, far away from the buffalo and the forgotten bananas. It'll be gone in another day or two, but for now it's a very comforting thing. There is no shame attached to the sorbet.