Friday, June 24

Plum lonesome…

I visited the Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker works in Berkeley a few years back. They had free tours of the factory and gave quite a comprehensive demonstration of how chocolate was processed. One of the oddities they showed was how the cacao bean pod grew—many of them simply stuck out of the trunk of the tree, looking like a small purplish-yellow football that was glued pointy-end to the tree. This lonesome plum reminded me of the cacao pod.

Unlike its siblings higher up, this little thing was only a few inches off the ground. It has been green for a very long time, much longer than the higher plums. Does it need more sunlight? Should it be closer to the fresh nutrients being made by the leaves? Is it anti-social? Do plums have souls? So many questions.

I can’t wait to eat it and put an end to the rumination.

No comments: