Let me tell you about my lunch. I had an apple, a banana, a mango and a prodigal amount of watermelon chunks. I am fruit-obsessed — always have been. And it goes beyond just consumption. One of my favorite fantasies is imagining it is 10 million years ago, and I am the first animal to spot a spiny pineapple and think to give it a chomp.
OK, before this column gets too weird, I digress. The point is, my love for fruit transcends space, species and function. Here are a few uses for fruit that might surprise you:
- Polish your boots with a banana peel by gently rubbing them with the inside of the skin. (This works on houseplants, too — should you wish to buff some shine onto their leaves.)
- Clean away soap scum with halved lemons. Simply squeeze the fruit into any recipe, sprinkle inside the skin with salt and scrub-a-dub-dub.
- Make seedling pots from avocado shells. After you scoop out the fruit, fill it with soil and bury your seed. Once it sprouts, just plant the entire shell into the ground.
- Keep brown sugar fresh with lemon zest — which, when added to a bag, will prevent the sweetener from forming hard clumps.
- Build a guitar using a cracked coconut. OK, this last one might require a bit more time investment — but a girl can daydream, can’t she?