Summer fruit

Summer is a great season and I’ll tell you why. You know, nowadays you can always have what you want, I mean, the fruits and vegetables and stuff like that, but there’s a season for everything, of course, and here in Georgia there are gardens and people have their fruits and vegetables for themselves and some have more than for themselves and then they sell them and they are very delicious. If you want to have a real taste of real fruit and vegetable, you should go and eat those stuff or buy them or whatever, because they are worth everything. That’s one of the reasons, why I love summer. There are nectarines, peaches, apricots, Alucha, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, all the berries, apples, of course, mulberries, plums, cherries and, well, all the other fruits and not to mention many vegetables, so it’s like healthy food festival in summer!

Alucha

Well, the first things here are the strawberries, of course, and Alucha. Maybe you don’t know about Alucha, but I certainly do. It’s a great thing. They say, it’s in Georgia and that’s why I can’t translate the name for you. I don’t know, whether I can call it fruit or vegetable. I guess, it’s none of them, I don’t know. But its season is from somewhere around the end of April and then it continues to be in season for some months and children especially love it. There are trees in Kakheti almost in every yard and they have Alucha on that season and everyone just loves eating it and it’s better than Tkemali, because Tkemali is sour and Alucha is not that sour, so it’s easier to eat and hence, you can eat it much more than you can eat Tkemali. It kind of reminds me of plum somehow, but I don’t think anyone else would say that except for me. Well, if you find Alucha somewhere, you should definitely taste it. It’s worth tasting, really. Once you’ve tasted it, you will want to eat it again, trust me, everyone says that.

Strawberries

So, what about strawberries. I’ve written about strawberries in my other blogs and I’ve talked about them a lot, I guess. However, it’s never enough to talk or write about strawberries, because that is the kind of fruit that most people love and it has many vitamins in it and it doesn’t really have much calories and it’s a great fruit for people who are on a diet and want to lose some weight. It’s good for our immune system, too, as it contains much vitamin C. And it’s really delicious, at the same time! So, you should eat strawberries whenever you have a chance, if you ask me. Strawberries are great with everything and you will find that amazing when you realize that, I guess. They are just great! I love them. My whole family loves them, so we often or almost always have strawberries in late spring and summer _ when there’s a strawberry season. And right now it’s a strawberry season here, so that we have strawberries almost every day and it’s just amazing. Also, I would like to tell you, that there are different strawberries and the ones we buy are Georgian strawberries and they are really different from the imported stuff (and that imported stuff is mainly from Turkey, I guess) and that’s the main thing about strawberries here. You should definitely buy strawberries from people in Bazaars and not in typical grocery stores, because that’s where the most delicious strawberries are sold, if you want to know the truth. Well, at least, I buy strawberries there and I love the taste of them, so I don’t know about you, but that’s what I like.

Apricots

Now about apricots. My mother loves apricots very much. She just loves them. And I know that and when I see some good and nice looking apricots, I buy them for her so that she is happy. Well, others in our family love apricots, too, of course, and I also like them, but I think, she loves them the most. Apricots have this different taste from all the fruits. Well, they all have kind of different taste, otherwise they would all be same, I guess. I don’t really love any fruit or vegetables, which are ripe, I mean, I love them when they are something like almost ripe. So I usually buy fruit and vegetable when they are in such condition, otherwise I don’t buy them at all. When I see an apricot, I just know whether I like it or not and I’m pretty good at choosing the right fruit and vegetable, if you want to know the truth, so I always buy some good apricots, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.

Peaches

Then there are peaches. I love peaches. They are just some juicy stuff and whenever there’s a chance of having some peaches, I just don’t let that chance slip away. We even make some Kompoti from peaches, so that we can have them in winter. Usually my grandmother did that, and usually grandmothers do that here, in general, but now she got older and she can’t really do that alone, so this year I told her, that I would help her prepare some peach Kompoti and all she has to do is to tell me what to do and how much sugar to add and stuff like that. And I hope the plan will work out.

Nectarines

With those apricots and peaches come the nectarines, too. They are more enjoyable, than peaches, I guess, because they don’t have these things on peel and you can eat them just like that, without peeling or anything. And they are just as much juicy as peaches and children love them so much, that they can eat the whole bunch of nectarines in a blink. We have some nectarine trees in our garden, and last year they were really delicious. We have peaches, too. I just had a chance of eating them last year and they were really tasty. They always are!

Watermelon and melon

You know about melon and watermelon _ they are the real fruits of summer! Especially watermelon. People have watermelon fields here in Kakheti and they have many watermelons, which then they sell and earn some money. And those watermelons taste good and we always buy watermelons in summer, of course. People in my family just love watermelon. But I prefer the melon. I don’t know why. Melon is something I can always eat. It has this great smell and taste, while watermelon is just fluid. Of course, I eat watermelon, too, and I must say, that there are not many things that I can’t or don’t eat, but mostly I like everything and I can eat everything. You know, there are people, who say that they can’t eat some things, or they don’t love some things, so that they don’t eat them at all and stuff like that. I’m not like that. So, my family members just adore watermelon and I guess, we have watermelon every day in summer. Oh, and another thing that I don’t like in watermelon is that it’s big and it requires much space and effort for it to be cut and then those seeds are everywhere and the juice is everywhere, too and it’s just annoying to me, I guess. Maybe that’s one of the reasons, why melon is my favourite one. You know, they use to make this so called “watermelon diet” when they want to lose weight, and, I guess, it has its effects, because there are some people, who were on that diet and they lost some weight. Well, technically, watermelon consists mostly of water and it’s like you’re getting just water the whole day. Of course, it has carbohydrates and much sugar in it and I think, it’s not recommended for many people to eat just watermelon all day, but people just don’t listen to anyone. They can ask you a question and you think they want to hear your opinion or the information that you surely know, but they don’t really consider what you answer them and they don’t really care about that, I guess.

Cherries

Moving to cherries, I must say, that there are different types of cherries and we have many of them here. Some like white cherries and some love red cherries and stuff like that. I love them, too. Though they are kind of hard to eat, I mean, they have these cherry-stones, you know, and no one really likes them, but the taste is worth everything, I guess. We have cherry trees, too, in our garden and they are pretty amazing. Well, we had this white cherry tree, but it is not alive anymore, however we have red cherry trees, too, there are three or more of them and they are pretty amazing. They have this distinguished taste that you can not resist. My mother loves that red cherries. However, I prefer white cherries to those red ones. You know, some time ago she used to make cherry pies. Well, she didn’t really use to, more likely she made cherry pies a couple of times, but then we were little children and we didn’t like that pie very much and so that she didn’t make cherry pies after that, because we wouldn’t eat, I guess. To be honest, I didn’t really like pies or cakes with fruit in them until recently. While she really likes them. There’s this bakery nearby my apartment and I just found out that they bake a great apple cake (I won’t call it a pie, because it’s more of a cake, though everyone here call it “ghvezeli” which means “pie” in English, but I don’t think that those two are the same in that case) and I had never tasted apple cake before. I just had some cherry cake and stuff like that tasted earlier, that my aunt made and last year or so I made some plum cakes, too, which were kind of delicious, I mean, I told you I didn’t really love things like that and I made them for others, so I tasted them, too, of course, and they were good, I guess. So, that apple cake they bake nearby is really large piece and it’s really nourishing and not dry and it’s so soft and nice that you can’t stop eating it. I’ve never tasted something like that before, if you want to know the truth.

Apples

Well, what about apples?! Apples are just some things that I can’t refuse anytime. And, well, they are available all year round, so it can’t be said that they are summer fruits, but still, we eat them in summer, too, so they can be referred to as summer fruits, too. Of course, there are some apples which ripen in summer, for example, we have this green apple tree, which ripens in late summer and it’s really tasty. My grandparent love that apple and I love it, too. It has some different taste, you know, and it has this small cute apples on it. Of course, we have apple trees in our vineyard place, too. They are red apples and the other ones are kind of green, and because of their shape and colour (I guess) they call them a cucumber-type, but don’t imagine a cucumber-shaped apple, please, I’m begging you! They are nothing like cucumbers. They ripen in autumn and we all go and pick them. Well, not always, but sometimes we go and pick them. Or my father picks them and brings them home, where we store them and eat them whenever we want. Many people love those golden apples, which they call them “Golden” and “Banana” and stuff like that and they have a very different taste, more of a sugary than the sour or something like that. So, my uncle has apple trees of all of them and he gets many of those stuff and they have this good storage place and they are stored very well in autumn and winter. Some people say, if you store your apples in newspaper papers, they will be stored better, but I don’t know, I haven’t tried. Well, apples are great for everything. They are good for vitamin C, they are good if you want to detox or if you are on a diet and want to lose weight they always suggest eating some apples, because they have low calories and they are juicy and they have vitamin C, as I’ve already mentioned, and they give you the feeling of eating enough. Also, if you have them with you, you can snack during the day and get some energy and don’t feel guilty that you ate some heavy fast food or something like that. You just eat healthy with the help of apples and they are easy to carry around in your bag. I used to do that at university, because there was not enough time between the lectures to go and eat something somewhere, so I just had this small apple in my bag and when I had a break I would eat it and it would give me some energy to focus on lectures.

Pears

As a little child, I used to love pears especially. And my grandmother has this pear tree, which I loved the most. It was soft and juicy and had this shape that I remember that I liked very much. And I still love pears and some weeks ago when I walked into a grocery store and saw some pears, I just went there and picked some of them I was so glad that they had those pears. They were kind of like those ones that my grandmother has, so that I bought them immediately. We had a pear tree, too, which was kind of like that one, but we don’t have it anymore. However, we have another pear tree, though it is not like that one, but it’s delicious, too, and when I go home I use to pick one or two pears and take them and eat them and so on and so forth. You know, there are many trees in our garden, I realize that now that I have listed all of them together.

Blueberries

I love blueberries. Though it has been only a couple of years since I first tasted them and I try to eat them ever since. Besides the taste, I googled them and saw that they are rich in vitamins and they are beneficial for our bodies and brain and stuff like that and, well, that is true to all berries, I guess, but blueberries are special, if you ask me. So, I always look forward to when the grocery stores import them, and I was really glad when Carrefour posted on Facebook that they had blueberries on sale during some days and even if they were not on sale I would still go there and buy those blueberries, of course, because I was waiting for that day for some time now. Well, all the berries are great. There are blackberries grown outside our vineyard naturally and whenever we go there, we just pick them and eat them. They are pretty delicious and people use to make Kompotis from them, too, and we also use to make them. They are great in winter and we just love them.

Mulberries

Mulberries are another summer fruit and my grandparents love them very much. We have mulberries in our garden, too (big surprise! ) and it’s kind of a mixed mulberry tree. You know, there are two types of mulberries _ one is white and the other one is black. And we used to have this huge white mulberry tree, but then they cut it down and now we have this kind of black mulberry tree, which is kind of delicious, I guess, I mean, I have just tasted it some days ago and couldn’t really understand the taste right then. My other grandmother has a huge black mulberry tree in her yard, we used to climb that tree when we were children with our neighbours and we used to eat those mulberries and we had so much fun then. Those mulberries were really delicious. I can’t really describe the taste, but it had a real taste!

Raspberries

Oh, you can’t leave raspberries out! It is a fruit that is for a short amount of time, I guess, but it’s just great for everything and I really love it. My grandmother has them in her yard, too, and I remember when we were children we used to go there just to eat them, we loved them so much. They also associate with strawberries in me, because those two are ripen nearly together, I guess, so there were two of them ripen together in my grandma’s yard and we would eat both of them then.

They use to make raspberry jamsand they are really great when you eat them in winter with hot tea and a slice of bread or something like that. But I’m not very fond of any jams, if you want to know the truth. However, my mother just loves them and she buys some different jams, like raspberries, figs, cornels, walnuts, etc.

The one jam that I liked as a child was this watermelon jam, which is really delicious, if you ask me, and I can eat it anytime, I guess, because it has such great taste. Well, some people don’t really like it, but I do. And I guess, many other like it, too. However, I know, that the preparation process is really difficult and time-consuming and you have to choose the right watermelon for that, I mean, it needs to be thick _ the skin of the watermelon _ for the jam to be good.

Well, I guess, I wrote many things about summer fruit in Georgia and what I like and what I don’t like and all the other stuff about them. Now you get why summer is a great season besides all the other things, right? That’s one of the main points of summer for me. That’s the season when you can eat very healthy stuff and not those chocolates and sugar and baked stuff and other things. Well, people still eat them and I’m not the exception, of course, but still, we eat more fruit and vegetable in summer than in other times of the year and that’s great. And I only wrote about the fruits and there are so many vegetables besides the fruits and we also eat those vegetables, of course. There are cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, eggplants, potatoes, mushrooms and all the other stuff that we can eat, and corns also. Everyone loves boiled corn here and we have corns, too, and we use to cook them and eat them and they are very delicious, you know that. Children especially wait for the corn season to come, because they love corn very much.

So, that’s my article about summer fruits and now you know which fruits are more popular in Georgia in summer than others and what people really eat and how they eat them, well, at least, that’s how I know people around me buy and eat fruits and that’s how me and my family do that. There are many options what you can do in summer and eating fruits is the one I really recommend, especially when you are in Georgia, there is a wide variety of fruits that you can have in summer and not only in summer, of course. But in summer, you can choose from so many fruits, that it’s like really confusing. So, you have to buy small amounts of everything and just enjoy your fruits all day long!

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