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A tip for those who want the taste of summer but the comfort of warm food during the dregs of winter: grill your pineapple. Slice the fruit into half-inch discs, prepare a very hot grill pan with cooking spray, and grill the slice for about three or four minutes on each side or until the surface of the fruit begins to dry. (They get mushy if you cook them too long; so, unless that’s what you’re into, watch out). If you didn’t have much luck with picking a ripe pineapple or if you’d like it sweeter, you can brush the slices with honey before grilling. Delicious alone—even more delicious with vanilla ice cream.
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Warm weather. Really warm weather—do you remember it? We had a glimpse of it a couple weekends ago, when the temperature jumped from the freezing 30s to the 70s, and people put on their flip-flops and threw around Frisbees on the quad while snow melted into pools along the sides of the streets.
Just a small taste of warm weather had many of us wishing for spring—and even more of us (like me) impatiently yearning for summer. And with the warm sun on my face for the first time in months, the spring-scented air breathed a single word into my ear, a welcome token of encouragement toward the summer to come: pineapple.
I had to get one.
You think it’d be tough to walk into a Central-Illinois Wal-Mart and expect the first pineapple you find to be the perfect pineapple. Actually, it’s easy. You can smell the base of the fruit and look for that bright, delicious pineapple smell—a strong fruity smell is always a good indicator of a ripe fruit. Or you can look to see if the eyes of the pineapple are all roughly the same size. (With less-ripe fruits, the eyes at the base are larger than the ones nearer to the top.) Evenly sized eyes, pleasant fruity smell and bright yellow color—the more yellow the better—are all signs of a ripe pineapple. I think it goes without saying that moldy, leaky or unpleasant-smelling pineapples are best avoided. Whoops, said it anyway.
With a grin on my face, I carried my pineapple into my apartment; cradled in my arms like my own firstborn child. As I set it on my kitchen table, that fickle spring breeze picked me up and carried me outside again, leaving my pineapple to be forgotten until the next day.
The next day was freezing. My pineapple laid sliced open on the counter, its bright scent cutting like sunshine into the overcast day around it. I left the apartment that morning with a slice of pineapple in my hand and flip-flops on my feet. Spring will come. And summer will follow. Even if we have to force it.
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