Do you know that kind of sour that makes your saliva glands ache a little and actually squirt just thinking about biting into something? It’s like, no you don’t want to eat that, but you can’t stop yourself! And there you are 3 seconds later... not wanting to take yet another bite. But you know you will! A little shiver goes down your spine and you can’t decide if it is from pleasure or pain!

Well that’s the kind of sour I have for you today. The sour kind of sour, that can only be described as hurts so goooood!

And look at these things, I have seen engagement rings with less sparkle and appeal!

So break through your barriers, put aside your fears, and let's take a journey on the sour side.

Pickled Rhubarb Rubies!

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Red Spinach. I have saved my favorite for last.

Green Spinach I know you know. But its red veined cousin is an entirely different creature. It is sweet. Almost dessert sweet. It has a honey taste with nutty spinach undertones. It’s quite remarkable.

I’m not going to sit here and try and explain its flavor. It’s too hard for me. Honey and Nuts-- those are my best descriptors. Besides tasting should be a personal experience all your own. I encourage you to have that experience.

Until this week I had never knowingly tried Red Spinach. I have noticed it used in Indian Foods, I have seen it on the menus and may even have had some as an ingredient in a curry or something. I can’t say for sure because until I ate it raw I never really gave it much thought. If you do not know it by the name Red Spinach you may know it by it’s other common names: Malabar Spinach, Ceylon Spinach, Indian Spinach, Vine Spinach, and Malabar Nightshade (Malabar is a coastal region in southwestern India).

Gertrude Stein’s (arguably) most famous quote is "a rose is a rose is a rose". It makes you wonder, had she ever met a quince?

I think Shakespeare’s Juliet was closer to the truth when she said, “…a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Quince can be marvelously sweet smelling.

If you are casually acquainted with the fruit, quince may seem more like an apple or a pear. And in fact it is a “pome” fruit just like an apple or pear. Pome fruits are most easily described at a fruit with a “core” or “endocarp”. Apples and pears have cores, so do cotoneaster, hawthorn, loquat, medlar, Pyracantha, quince, rowan, and whitebeam.

Though quince shares other botanical traits with the rest of the pome fruits, the quince’s culinary traits are quite different. In fact it’s culinary traits line up more with the rose (had you not considered rose culinary?).