Friendship Fruit

Do you remember Friendship Fruit?

'Way back in the '70s, there was a craze for Friendship Fruit, a sicky sweet combination of canned fruits swimming in brandy that was the starter for a cake or to be poured over ice cream. The idea was that you had to get it from a friend who had gotten it from a friend, and you kept adding fruit and hooch and passing it along. To me, it always seemed like a thinly-veiled excuse to get high.

Anyway, here in sunny California 40 years later, we have redefined Friendship Fruit. We just trade fresh fruit that we grow or liberate from neighbors' yards with our blog friends, and then post about what we made with it. The oranges for this recipe came from Cookiecrumb and Cranky, when we met for coffee. They got my neighbor's grapefruits in return.

I found a recipe that sounded just right for My Beloved, who loves scallops, on the beautiful blog, The Italian Dish. The whole concoction worked like a champ but, interestingly, only once the sea salt was added at the end. I had neglected this last flourish and found the dish disappointingly bitter but when we remembered and added the salt, it changed the entire profile of the flavors remarkably and changed a so-so dish to a really wonderful one!

So, the moral of the story is "Use the Friendship Fruit and Don't Forget The Salt!"