It is pomegranate season again. I love pomegranates. I really do.

The first time I had a pomegranate was when we had just moved to Cairo. It was pomegranates season then, too, only I didn't know that yet. It was a hard move, we moved right at the beginning of December and EVERYTHING was unfamiliar. I can't think of one thing that felt the same... except my family. Everything was new and different (read, scary and unfamiliar). Nothing was simple, my mom and I got lost taking a walk even though we swore we just stuck to following the same high wall around one square block.

And then...

Our new landlady, Cookie, gave us a pomegranate. She knew we probably had never seen one before so she showed us how to open it and carefully take out the seeds inside. I can still hear her cautioning us to be careful because the juice will stain and not come out. And what a sweet surprise! So delicious! So tart yet inviting. So pretty once you opened the leathery outside. It was the first thing I loved about Egypt. Every winter the fruit vendors would pile high pyramids of pomegranates on their carts and we would eagerly pick out the ones we thought would taste best.

But it all ended when we came back to Canada. No more pomegranates. No more, that is, until the last few years when they have appeared in supermarkets everywhere! We would find one or two small little excuses for a pomegranate at certain stores, but they'd be outrageously priced. But now the rage has caught on, and pomegranate season returns.

I'll eat one or two a week during pomegranate season. I don't even mind the lengthy task of emptying the seeds from the husk. I like the feel of the leathery skin. How it often seems that if it looks beat up and kinda brown, like it's truly traveled from somewhere exotic, it has the best, sweetest, reddest seeds. I love slicing off the ends, trying not to slice open any seeds, challenging myself to make as little mess as possible. And then prying open the tough skin to reveal glistening jewel after glistening jewel. The pomegranate is such a female fruit. The many soft folds of white flesh, the bright red of the seeds. The tender way you must handle the fruit. She is a thing of beauty.

So go! Buy yourself a pomegranate and delite in the experience. Pomegranate season doesn't last forever, afterall.