Top Ten Fruit Savers

Keep broccoli, and celery, and lettuce their crispest by wrapping them in tin foil before storing them in the refrigerator. Celery will stay crisp for four weeks or more, lettuce heads up to six weeks, and broccoli up to seven weeks.

To store carrots, cut off the greens and place them in a plastic bag before sticking them in your crisper drawer. Carrots will keep for up to two weeks. BTW - Carrots do not improve your eyesight and will not help you see better at night.

Cherries should be refrigerated in a plastic bag, but not washed until ready to eat, because moisture hastens mold where stems meets the fruit.

In warm weather, avocados will ripen fast, but don’t store avocados in the refrigerator unless they are cut, otherwise the cold will turn them black inside. To keep them at their most palatable state, spritz a bit of lemon or lime juice, or another acidic agent, and place in an air-tight container or tightly covered clear plastic wrap.

Apples  are a year-round delight, but some the most flavorful kinds (e.g. Gala, Ginger Gold, Pink Lady) make their appearance during the summer. During the warmer months, apples should be stored in the fridge, while in the fall; they can be stored on the counter. When storing apples in the fridge, drape a damp paper towel over the container of apples instead of a top. Do not put them in a drawer or air-tight container. Both the cold temperature and the moisture will help them stay their freshest for up to several weeks.

What's a summer BBQ without some grilled corn? When storing corn, keep the husks on, but cut away the shank (this part of the grain is a magnet for worms). Put your corn in a plastic bag and place it in your refrigerator's crisper. The corn will remain at its freshest for two days. While the corn will start to dry out after day two, but will still remain edible.

Melons will keeps for about 10 days in the cold temperature, but are most flavorful at room temperature. Take your melon out of the fridge and allow it to warm for about 30 minutes before serving.

Peaches and nectarines should be bought firm, but stored at room temperature once you have them home. Do not put them in the fridge before they are ripe, as chilling them before that will result in fruit that is mealy and flavorless. They should keep for a few days before they begin to lose their flavor.

A Rose by Any Other Name

Apples, apricots, blackberries, cherries, loquats, peaches, pears, plums, quinces, raspberries, and strawberries, wild or cultivated, are all relatives of roses.

Typically, they have showy flowers with five equal petals arranged around a central cup bearing one or more fruit-forming pistils and a large number of pollen-bearing stamens. Their leaves are placed alternately on the twigs or stalks. Some of them simple leaves and some of them compound leaves divided into three, five or more leaflets like the rose itself. Some are trees, some are shrubs, and some are vining herbs. All are roses and all taste good and are good for us.

Nine Interesting Food Facts

1 Apple is made of 25% air, that is why they float.
2 Avocado has the highest protein and oil content of all fruits.
3 Carrots were originally purple in color, changing in the 17th Century to orange with newer varieties.
4 Cherries are a member of the rose family.
5 Corn always has an even number of ears. It only makes up about 8% of the weight in a box of corn flakes.
6 Honey is the only edible food for humans that will never go bad.
7 Lemons contain more sugar than strawberries.
8 Peanuts are one of the ingredients in dynamite.
9 Pear is a fruit that ripens from the inside out.