A FRUITFUL ENCOUNTER

A couple of days ago, after an hour or so at the paper, I decided to go home, have a late lunch and then snuggle up in front of the telly.

The car outside temperature gauge said 6°C. It felt more like zero! I turned on the magic seat heater and drove to my local supermarket to buy something to cook. On cold grim days, I usually enjoy a warm hearty soup with plenty crusty bread. Using my faithful pressure cooker, I can often produce a delicious soup in less than twenty minutes from start to finish.
As I walked through the vegetable department picking onions, peppers, tomatoes, leeks, celery for a nourishing Minestrone, I noticed some persimmons. An elderly lady who looked like she knew what she was doing, was carefully selecting one fruit at a time, gently squeezing and then sniffing it.

“Excuse me, please. How do you choose them?” I asked. “A friend of mine from Guyana said they’re beautiful but I know nothing about them.”
“They have to be firm but not hard. These are from Israel.” she answered with a slight foreign accent.
“Is that where you are from?”
“Yes, but I moved to Teesside over forty years ago.” 
“I come from Algeria, myself, but I’ve never seen these persimmons on that side of the Med.” I said, “So what do you do with this fruit, then?”
“Wash them first and then you just eat them! They are beautifully sweet! You can also turn them into a lovely jam or use them in cakes.”
I bagged four fruit, thanked the woman and proceeded to the checkout.
As soon as I got in the car, before I even started it, I got a persimmon out of the bag, rubbed it against my jacket front, the way they do in films, and bit into the sweetest fruit I have ever tasted! Heaven!
When I got home, as I placed the persimmons in the fruit bowl, I spotted that they all had a sticker on.
I realised that, in my haste to taste the nectar in the car, I had also eaten the label.

In conversation with a friend about French food and wines, we both remembered and laughed at the joke about the American couple who, while touring France, couldn’t believe that many “French villages were called after famous wines and cheeses.” 
And then I recalled how excited I was when, on a short tour of France in 2002, I nearly drove past a village called Puligny-Montrachet which happened to be the name of the most expensive white wine we sold at Krimo’s at Seaton. I reversed and entered the tiny hamlet littered with small wineries on both sides of the main street.
At the first one we visited, we were welcomed by a woman from Leeds who had married a French winemaker.

I spent a few moments bragging that we sold the wine in our restaurant, then asked about the prices. She said: “€23 a bottle.” After getting over the shock, -after all, we sold the same wine for £28 a bottle- I bought two. One for me and one for my brother who lived in Paris at the time. If I had kept mine to this day, I could’ve sold it for £180! 
But then, I am not one who keeps wine too long on the rack.