Noble Grapefruit

So my cousins were up here on Sunday and we were talking about candy, and I happened to mention my stash of "gummy candies" (sorry...just writing about them made me have to get up and go and get some) anyway I figured before I showed them were they were hidden, I should tell them "why" I had them. A few months ago my mom, dad, sister and I were in Carmel, CA and the two memorable things about the trip were 1) my sister had to use the restroom every 15 minutes-couldn't even make it through an entire movie! (sorry Tia - it's true-but my husband is the same way) and 2) I'm obsessed with gummy grapefruit candy! We'd be shopping and all I would care about was if there was a candy store nearby so I could get the grapefruit candy (and the gummy apples...not apple rings...just gummy apples). So we go home and a few weeks pass and at an activity we play the game "telephone", and my line was "my favorite candy is gummy grapefruit"...which made my mouth water, and I immediately went home and googled gummy grapefruit (since you can't purchase it in Prescott). Would you believe that Amazon.com sells 5lb bags of grapefruit gummy candy???? And not just the pink, but the white also??? So-since I couldn't decide I ordered one of each! and then for the heck of it, threw in a bag of gummy apples (which have risen to the top of the list since they're the first to be wiped out). So at one point I had 15lbs of gummy candy in my cupboard. I am happy to say that over 2 months later I STILL have 10lbs...I slowly chip away at it...I say slowly because too much gummy results in serious stomach sickness, not to mention guilty sickness when you're sitting in the dentist's chair.

So I tell my cousins this story and at the FIRST mention of GRAPEFRUIT, my one cousin yells "grapefruit!!!!????" What is it with your family and grapefruit?? I wasn't quick enough to follow where she was going with grapefruit, so she reminded me about an event that took place at my home over 20 years ago. It involved my father coming home and saying, "I'm thirsty, and I would love a glass of grapefruit juice". So he loaded all the kids up (5 of us + my 3 cousins) in the red truck and drove us over to the Cook's house (they had huge grapefruit trees in their yard-heck everyone had grapefruit trees in Yuma except for us), and told us to start picking. Only after the ENTIRE BED OF THE PICKUP was full, did we head home. (Care to guess what happened next?) Yep, he pulled out the old metal stand juicer (it was a manual one...no electricity involved here and it was brought all the way from Guadalajara) and told us to get to work...then if memory serves me correctly he went upstairs to take a nap.

So my cousins memory connecting one eccentric (borderline OCD) Noble Grapefruit story to another had us totally busting up...but didn't keep me from nibbling away! (I shared this memory with my father, who of course had NO recollection at all.)