Summer is my favorite time of year, not just for the nice warm weather, vacations, and lots of time outside, but for the abundance of scrumptious fruit available to us in California. I’m a fruit freak. If you opened my fridge today, you’d wonder how many people live with me. (That would be zero.) But I can’t help it. I’m a stocker. I stock up on things, just like my mom did.

I enjoy most fruit but some I simply tolerate, like grapefruit and papaya. Also, I can take or leave kiwi. Now don’t get me wrong; I have nothing super negative to say about those fruits, other than they’re boring. To me they’re not in the same ballpark as cherries or watermelon. And while we’re at it, throw in blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries.