OOO #28: Outfits, Ohio, and Other Things I Like
A request not a compliment, my favorite community resource, and my fruit power rankings
Outfits
Ohio
I love my local rec center.
My husband first identified the Schiller Community Center as an absolute gem when we first moved to Columbus. He was on the hunt for a new gym and realized the yearly membership of the rec center, whose gym is huge and usually not too busy, cost the same as a monthly membership of local, private gym.
This past spring, I paid an extra $10 on top of my membership to play a season of open-gym badminton. I was very into badminton in high school, and I’m pretty sure I was all county (or all-conference? Who knows) in singles my junior year, so I was very excited to get back on the court.
Everyone I played against at the rec center was way better than me, and my time playing this spring was an exercise in the cultivation of and faith in a growth mindset, but I had fun nonetheless. And I really do think I got better as the season went on!
In addition to sports, the rec center also has a ton of classes across the arts, including an introduction to drawing class that I have my eye on (because I don’t think I can endure another school year of sheepishly drawing continents and countries that are so woefully unlike what they actually look like). All of their courses are very well priced. Moving forward, if I’m trying a new skill, I think I’ll start by perusing their course listing before looking at private institutions/studios.
In general, the Schiller Community Center is a beautiful resource for adults and the children in our community as well!
Other Things I Like
Right before school ended, one of my students made the bold proclamation that pineapple is the worst fruit (and that oranges are the best fruit—absurd, I know), and after the class—and I—calmed down about the absolute blasphemy we were just subjected to, it got me thinking about what the best fruit actually IS.
Now that it’s stone fruit season—arguably my favorite time for fruits and vegetables, except for maybe the winter squash harvest—I have decided to make my fruit power rankings.
My top 3 fruits are*:
Passionfruit. I love sour and tangy flavors (for reference, Crocodile Tongue at Columbus Brewing Company is so sour that you can’t drink it without making a face, so it’s perfect), and the combination of the sour jelly-ish flesh, the array of colors on the inside and out, and the satisfyingly crunchy seeds make it an absolutely delightful fruit. No notes.
Plums. I had to include a stone fruit in my top three picks, and not just because they’re in season. There is nothing that transports me back to childhood quite like a sweet, ripe plum, and I truly love that beautiful dark purple color that their skin can have. I would eat a plum every day, all year round, if I could, but I think the seasonality of them makes them all the more special.
Raspberries. Cherries were a very close alternative, but I thought it was necessary to round out my top three with a berry rather than another stone fruit. The best berry is undoubtedly a raspberry. Not only are they delicious and have an incredibly satisfying texture (yes, I’ve used satisfying twice in this section, but I think that’s a criteria of fruit excellence!), but they are also the base of my favorite jam.** Also, they can make some incredible-looking desserts… I mean look at this thing.
Rounding out my top eight:
Dark sweet cherries, pineapple, kiwi, grapefruit, and pomegranates. Ironically, the fruit I eat the most are apples and bananas, which I would not even consider to be in my top 10—maybe not even top 15.
My passion for fruit (no pun intended) was sparked by Adam Leith Gollner’s The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Obsession, Commerce, and Adventure. Gollner traveled all over the world to learn more about the cultivation, business (including illicit business), and cultures around a plethora of mundane and unusual fruits, and since I read his book, I’ve been dreaming of one day trying the scandalously shaped and exceptionally difficult to obtain coco de mer. If you are a fruit lover, it’s a fun read.
On a side note, oranges are the worst fruit. I’m not sure I could think of one that is simultaneously more watery AND more dry. No thanks.
That’s it! Have a great rest of your week and happy first day of summer!
*Unlike my highly scientific flag-rating system, I just went with my gut on this ranking.
**Also, thank you to everyone who has gifted me jam in the last year in response to reading OOO. It means so much to me that you are reading, and I’ve eaten most of the jars you’ve given me!! 😭😭😭