Cornucopia of Produce

Oman is overflowing with fresh produce from all over the larger "East". Philipino bananas, Syrian peaches, Saudi melons, Pakistani mangoes, Omani dates in all stages of ripeness....and on and on. The choices are deliciously enticing and amazingly inexpensive.

It took us quite a while to get into the swing of things and away from the larger stores, but once we did, my husband and I got seriously hooked on eating good fruit and vegetables.

We stroll into the souq near our apartment, knowing we need bananas and some lettuce for smoothies and salad, but end up leaving with a kilo of dates, a box of 40 oranges, a box of 9 massive mangos, and a 2 kilo melon.

This seems excessive, no?

Right, that's what we thought too, but buying bulk here is sometimes the only options. At the souqs, they only sell fruit by the sandouq, or box, because most people are buying for big families. We're the weird guys on the block with no offspring.

So in order to cope with a kitchen overflowing with way too much fruit, we bought a juicer and now make all our own fruit juice. George has always liked juice, needed it almost to get going in the morning. I, on the other hand, never really liked juice and found it sickly sweet and fake tasting.

Fresh squeezed orange and grapefruit juice are something else though. Limeade, lemonade, anything you want. It's easy and tastes so much better than store boughten juice.

This morning I used up some of the kilo of dates we bought to make a banana, date, flax seed smoothie. Having so much produce available inspires you to be more creative in what you make and enjoy. It's a real blessing.

And-there's nothing nicer than waking up to a gorgeous man in the kitchen making you coffee and a glass of fresh grapefruit juice.