At last, into the house. Getting changed. The screech of our car’s brakes outside. The Husband! He will feed me!

Hugs and welcomes, then beseeching looks.

“Can you cook the tortellini? You’re so much better at it than I am. Remember last time I cooked ravioli, and all the filling ended up in the water?”

He kisses me. “Sure.” Yay!

While he fills the kettle and gets the saucepan of water boiling I eagerly peruse the six jars of pasta sauce I got in the mail. Which one to put with tortellini? Well, the tortellini are supposed to be spinach and cheese (ha, as if, all supermarket tortellini taste like they’re stuffed with breadcrumbs) so perhaps something other than cheese. Hmm, there’s one that’s supposed to have red peppers and chilli. That might perk up the pasta!

I’d better stop watching the water boil if I ever want to eat.

And at last the tortellini is cooked! The Husband drains it and tips it back into the saucepan before unscrewing the jar of sauce and pouring it in. No extra cooking, the heat of the pasta will warm it up! Stir and serve.

The tortillini is its usual pasta lumps. The sauce is chunkier than most other kinds I’ve used. Instead of a puree it’s more approaching diced tomatoes. There’s the occasional square of red capsicum, and a sheen of brightly crimson-orange oil. Dark flecks of parsley right through.

It tastes sweetly of tomato when I first put it in my mouth but the chilli is quite warm; it’s what lingers in my throat and on my tongue. The Husband comments on it. I like it with the tortellini, it lifts it compared to the stodgy innards, but I would never use this sauce in a lasagna or something. It would work well with penne though… perhaps with some olives added.

Not bad, I like that it’s not runny. In fact it really is more of a relish consistancy than a liquid. If I take a scoop with my fork it’s thick enough to sit with no drips as if snug in a spoon.

Better than the average supermarket sauce for a quick feed. I can feel the energy returning to my bones… just in time to deal with the cleaning up.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Bertolli Arrabbiata Pasta Sauce

Disclaimer: I was sent this sauce as a free sample.

The pinky-purple oval is the same size as my hands cupped together. It’s like a tiny rubber football with light green triangular tags. Quite solid and heavy.

Picking up a knife. Too flimsy, need a sharper one. Cut it right down the middle – this is a lot easier than I expected, the skin’s not so tough – into two halves. Brightly purple liquid drips out, like psychedelic blood. The flesh inside is also surprising, it looks just like canned beetroot. Same colour, same wetness, same gloss. Lots of tiny black seeds all through it.

Scooping the edible insides into a bowl. Juice tries to spray, hope it doesn’t stain the kitchen and I.

Pushing the spoon edge in to make a bite-sized piece. It puts up a token resistance but the metal smoothly moves through… like firm beetroot. The little seeds are hard and slippery.

Cool and soft, with crunch from the seeds. Pleasingly slippery on my tongue.

That’s… pretty much it. No real taste. It’s just wet and watery. Strange. But refreshing and light, would be good in summer. I’m not even minding it now in winter.

Munch. Munch. Why don’t you taste of anything when you’re so bold looking?

Such a weird, weird fruit.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Red-fleshed dragonfruit, bought from a random fruit store in Cabramatta

“Longans,” I reply, packing my groceries back into the trolley. These are a spontaneous purchase, glimpsed from the corner of my eye and dropped into my cart.

She taptaptaps into her computer. “I can’t find them in here… what did you say they were?”

“Longans. They were next to the lychees.”

“I know what lychees are… I like lychees…” she mutters.

“They cost the same as the lychees, $7.98 a kilo, if that helps.”

“I’ll put them in as lychees then.” And she does. How odd, a store selling something that it doesn’t recognise at the point of sale! Longans, I will get acquainted with you and your mysteries later in the week.

***

Four tan king-sized marbles, patterned with faint tortoise-shell markings. They’re light in my hand, almost as if they’re not there.

Sitting down at the table, taking one between my fingers. Squeeze. One side is soft, one side the skin feels tough and firm.

To peel, to peel… Digging my fingernail into the skin. Resistance, then a quiet squirting pop. Shelling like an egg until I make a decent hole. I think it should be able to be pulled through, but I’m scared of squashing it… and it’s free!

From the plate it looks like a white-grey glistening ball, smooth and once piece. Holding it near there are fine segment lines. Moist.

Nibbling. Lightly sweet, watery. Texture firmer than mangosteen but similar in the gentle taste. Pleasant. Like eating natural jelly.

The layer of flesh is surprisingly shallow; the stone is sudden and beautiful. An off-kilter black jewel sphere, so smooth the light above makes pin points on the surface. Amazing that something this lovely was so cleverly hidden beneath a translucent cocoon.

Peeling the other three, enjoying the gift-wrapping of black in translucent in brown, cheered each time the black seed comes into sight.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Longans bought from Coles in Macquarie Fields

Singing = no dairy. So eggs on toast? But the homemade chutney I made at Christmas is no more. What else to add zing?

The jar of caperberries? Yes.

Alas, to decide is to arise.

Eggs frying, toast browning, husband unscrewing stubborn caperberry jar. Inside the camouflage green fruits shift in their vinegar ocean, waiting… and freedom is granted! Kisses for the strongman.

Each oval is attached to a longer stem, with yellow veins stripes giving the impression that they once had a thicker skin but are now peeled.

Slice one.

Oh, I expected it to be the same green flesh the whole way through, but this really is the outer layer. Inside is a creamy collection of tiny seeds, like a chilli’s inner parts, nestled in a soft matching pulp.

Cut another one. Surprise again: this one’s seeds are larger and orange.

Taste. Vinegar and salt, like a caper. The white seeds are gritty, the orange ones hard and crunchy. The green skin gives easily, the smoothness enjoyable against the scattering pulp.

Fresh, zingy. Will go great with the eggs. Olives would be too heavy, capers too salty and intense, but the caperberry seeds spread the bright flavour well across the toast instead of concentrating it.

Thanks random jar that was reduced to clear!

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Delicias Caperberries, bought from Coles Macquarie Fields

“Choko, ewww!” we said. I don’t know how I knew I was supposed to dislike choko but I can’t remember a time that I didn’t think of it as a gross food for people who couldn’t afford anything better, and what McDonald’s was sneaking into the apple pies.

And now I’m going to cook it of my own free will. Weird how your life turns out!

It’s light green and a bit larger than my hand. Sprouting a bit at the top because I’ve let it sit on the benchtop a few days. Ooops. Smooth, waxy-skinned, mid-weight, no smell.

Everything online says it has sticky white sap that can irritate the hands; better dig out some plastic gloves. Rummaging under the sink. Only one single glove left. Oh well, better than none.

Holding the choko in the gloved hand, peeling it with my right, under a constant stream of tap water. Grr, hate peeling vegetables. Much prefer when I can just point out all the fibre is in the skin and leave it be. Can’t get at the skin in the crevices. Gah, this is so annoying, it’ll peel a bit then get stuck.

No sign of this much-warned white sap. Feels very un-Australian to have the tap on this long.

Right, that’ll do! Over to the chopping board. It quarters easily. I thought it’d have a round seed like an avocado, but the seed just appears to be a different textured piece of flesh: lighter speckled tan surrounded by the edible pearl white. Chop the ends away. Slicing it thinly. It looks like green apple: cuts like potato.

All sliced. Find a frying pan. Nothing too big, don’t want much washing up. Here. Heat. Olive oil. More olive oil. Er… too much olive oil. Oh well.

Garlic paste into the hot oil, spluttering. And in goes the choko!

Stirring. I wonder how I know when it’s done? When it tastes okay, I guess. I sliced it so thin that it’ll be hard to know when it goes tender.

Let it fry still, sticking my head into the fridge for continental parsley. Quick stir, then chopping parsley. In it goes! Mmm, frying parsley smells yum.

Fork in hand, hunting down a bit. Blow to cool. Taste.

It tastes… like crunch. Oily crunch. Not bad, quite good, in a greasy way. Too much oil. Can’t taste the garlic at all: maybe there’s something wrong with this new brand I’m trying.

Seems done though. All out!

Taste some more. Yes, it’s surprisingly, very surprisingly, good! Crunchy, oiled, light parsley taste. A bit of garlic, somewhere. Reminds me oddly of my mother’s crumbed veal, one of my favourite meals before I went vego. Perhaps it’s the oil and parsley.

The suggestion I read online was balsamic vinegar. Drip just a little onto one piece to see how it goes.

Mm, even better! The acid cuts through the grease. Though let’s face it, I love balsamic vinegar, can’t think of anything that wouldn’t be made better by it.

Crunching my way through the slippery bowl. I could slip this into a stir-fry and I don’t think The Husband would even notice.

Blah, bit of skin, really chewy and tough. Back onto the plate. Hmm, yes, where I haven’t peeled it well it really can’t be bitten through.

Okay, so if I prepared it properly then he wouldn’t notice.

Can’t believe I would actually cook it again! Shows how much a six year old knows.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Choko bought from an Asian grocery in Liverpool

The fig sits comfortably in the palm of my hand, dimpling easily when I press it. The green-brown-purple skin feels rubbery and flexible with a fine soft fuzz. It begs to be stroked like a pet, or squished between the fingers fingers. Teardrop-shaped, with a thin green hooked stalk at the top and a small hole at the centre of the base through which the pink innards peek… it’s cute fruit!

Peering at the hole in the base… suddenly it doesn’t seem so innocent. It looks disconcertingly like an anus.

Shake that idea away! Carefully pulling the fruit in half, the split begins easily from the hole and works its way up. Tugtugtug and the stalk separates too. Finish the segmenting by tearing the halves into quarters. Easy, no fuss or mess.

It’s amazing what was hidden inside such calm skin! A forest of coral-like creamy pale pink stalks with deeper pink bulbs on the end, little black spots inside some. The polyps look like an anemone, like they were surely waving and moving moments before I pulled the fruit open. They look so fresh and alive, as if the fruit died only moments ago.

Fascinating! But what does it taste like!

Bite in. The skin is slightly chewy with a note of plant bitterness. The inner flesh is moist but not slimy, smooth and easy to eat with the occasionally crunch of a more mature seed.

It tastes like coconut! Like vanilla! It has both those notes in the muted sweetness.

Slurp some of the fronds away from the skin. Without the bitterness it tastes like a delicate exotic butter cake.

Pretty darn tasty. Nothing like dried fig at all in flavour, that’s so rich, this is mellow and gentle, so easy to eat that it’s gone in a moment.

Just as well I bought two…

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Fresh figs bought at Harris Farm, Merrylands

I think it’s mostly the texture. Slippery black beads floating around in runny sticky snottiness. I don’t like eating anything that can’t be bitten: when I eat watermelons I’m really careful to avoid the seeds.

But Database Queen placed this fruit in my hand so there’s no way around it, even if I hate having my horizons so stretched.

This type of passionfruit is larger than the usual purple passionfruits eaten in Australia, round and smooth rather than wrinkled. Admittedly it does look pretty, with mauve skin speckled with grey like an exotic egg. It’s very light.

Time to cut it in half. Huh, the skin is pretty tough… requires some actual sawing.

Okay, it’s open and it’s mostly hollow. The inner side of the fruit’s skin is creamy yellow… with some odd, coral-like tuber growths poking off it in random patterns.

The edible seeds are sticky, hanging together with little liquid and much mucus, all seed and no sea. Each seed is dark bile green with a bright yellow tip.

It looks so gross, I really can’t believe I’m expected to put this in my mouth!

Sigh. The sooner I taste it the sooner I can stop tasting it.

Gah, it’s so sticky I can’t even scoop some of the seeds away from the rest! There is no way I putting this all into my mouth at once, no way on earth.

Pull some apart. It dangles from the spoon. Doitdoitdoit…

The seeds crunch between my teeth, so loud it feels like it echos in my ear.

The taste is intensely sweet and tart, very tropical, that taste I come across on pavlovas and avoid as much as I can.

Alright, honestly, while the taste is not what I like I can see how some people would like it. But I hate the stickiness and I can’t stand the seeds. If I were to eat the whole thing I would just swallow without chewing, like a dose of pills.

But I am not going to eat anymore. I tried it. I don’t like fancy passionfruit anymore than I like regular passionfruit.

Time to find some Easter chocolate as a reward for eating the food I’ve least wanted to eat since November.

Rating: 0.5 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Panama passionfruit bought from Harris Farm, Merrylands

Maybe I shouldn’t have told her about my new foods quest. On the one hand, she has been very supportive by bringing me strange new fruits and foods to try. But that means I have to eat them. It’s intimidating always eating new foods, and doubly so when someone else is choosing them for you.

The mangosteen she’s given me looks like a hard round plum, with a thick withering stalk poking out the top, surrounded by large drying leaves. On the bottom is a pretty flower-shaped pattern.

Database Queen points to the flower-shape. “The number of petals on the flower indicates how many wedges are inside.”

That’s kind of cool.

I try and break my mangosteen open. I’m such a weakling, at first I only manage to break bits of the hard crust off… ah, finally, the thick purple case begins to snap open.

Cradled inside this pinky-purple protection are white glistening fruit segments, like the inside of a mandarin but very pale and translucent. They seem so fragile and pure against the magenta boldness of their cradle… I feel like I’m about to snack into an embryo. Not a comforting thought.

Oh well. Pulling them completely free of the skin. Very soft and slippery. I take one and bite into it.

There is a firm, unyielding transparent centre. The white flesh around it is soft, with a mild sweet flavour. There is a tartness in the background, which I think comes from the pink juice of the hard shell. It’s a bit astringent, that purple stuff.

But the aril itself is okay, I guess. It’s sugary in a wet moist way.

I try a bigger segment and find the solid centre too large to entice me to swallow it down like the smaller one. I suck the edible whiteness away… now I feel very much like I’m eating snot.

Uh-oh. Between all these thoughts of mucus and fetuses this mangosteen is getting less and less appetising.

But the taste is okay! Focus on that! The texture is too soggy and it looks half-created, but no problems with the flavour.

I look at the remaining mangosteen. Um… maybe later.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Purple mangosteen bought at Harris Farm, Merrylands

I’m sick of eating new fruits. They’re never nice. I just want to eat apples and bananas and the occasional overripe pear. I’m tired of being adventurous. I want familiarity. I want comfortable predictable tastes.

But if I don’t eat this persimmon it may go bad. And I’ll still have to eat it, because I’m too cheap to chuck it out and buy another, and it’ll taste worse then. So suck it up and cut it up, sunshine.

I always imagined persimmons as being red, but this one is yellowy-orange. It looks just like a tomato except for the colour, but heavier. The dried circle of petal-shaped leaves remaining around the stalk look quite pretty, like an embossed letter seal.

Time to cut in I guess. Slice the leaves off the top, then cut the remains into quarters. Looks like the stem goes a little into the fruit; cut it off in triangles.

Funny… the flesh is nearly the same colour as the outer skin but with pretty red-brown flecks that seem to hover over a translucent softness.

Bite.

Hum… the taste is… not bad. Not too bad… The inner fruit is soft, the skin is quite tough and distracts from the flavour. Maybe if I bite around it, scraping the ripeness off the skin… yes, that is much better.

I can’t believe it… it tastes nice! Sweet, with a memory of honey. The slices sit so prim on the plate when once bitten they release a flood of juice that demands a hurried slurp lest it escape down my chin.

Oops, hit a tough bit. Perhaps there are segments, and I just hit the wall of one. Nibble around it, trying to get all the soft goodness away from the less-pleasant surrounds. Wow, it’s so tender I can actually just suck and the tasty flesh comes away, abandoning the undesired casing perfectly.

I will actually eat all of this fruit. Amazing. The first new fruit I’ve tried that I can see myself buying and eating again for pleasure.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Fuyu persimmon, bought at Coles Macquarie Fields

Cutting up the apples in the kitchen… and every single one is too bruised and old to eat. Which makes them pretty far gone, considering the quality of apple I am willing to eat. Mongolia is not kind to fruit.

Eyeing the Korean pears. Mr Corridor says they are cheaper and easier to get here than apples. So if I like it that would be very convenient…

They are much larger than the average apple, and moderately heavy. Chopping into quarters. The middle bit feels a bit woody, like a regular pear, but honestly the whole thing is pretty hard. I do not like hard pears. I am like my textures soft.

In it goes!

It’s very watery… not really any sweetness… just… water… and a cellular plant taste…

It’s so bland it’s quite unappetising.

Try some of the skin. Bah… it’s edible but kind of waxy…

More of the white flesh… no, now come on pear, why be so crunchy and nothing else? How can you have no taste? And even worse, how can you have no taste but taste bad? It’s creeping me out.

I don’t care if they’re cheap. No more Korean pears for me.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

Specifics: Korean pear bought at Home Plaza, Ulaanbaatar