One of my favorite things about wintertime is the profusion of citrus fruits. I can stuff myself day after day with navel oranges, honey tangerines, ruby red grapefruits, clementines, blood oranges - you name it, I'll eat it.

I suppose, if nothing else, I'll never get scurvy.

That being said, I found myself with a few too many fruits the other day. I had forgotten about the five pound bag of oranges I'd bought one day and came home the next with an eight pound bag. That's a few too many for our house even.

After indulging in fresh squeezed orange juice for a couple days I decided to make a navel orange sorbet. However, even though my ice cream maker attachment was frozen solid and my sorbet base was chilled thoroughly, it refused to set up. I fell back on popsicles, but even then they weren't too my liking. The navel oranges just don't offer enough in complexity of flavor to make a satisfying frozen treat. Best eaten directly out of hand, or squeezed.

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It almost seems counterintuitive that such a lively crop as citrus would ripen in the cold, dreary winter months. Perhaps it's nature's way of preventing us from all going stir crazy as the blustery cold batters us into a wintry depression - give us just enough sunshine to keep us all happy.

Of those citrus currently available, grapefruit is by far my favorite; something about the play of sweet, sour, and bitter that tantalizes the taste buds.

I first had a grapefruit panna cotta at Passionfish and have since entertained recreating it at home. The flavor infuses perfectly into the rich cream and counters it sufficiently - a satisfying dessert that doesn't weigh too heavily on the stomach after a rich meal. That one was topped with a vanilla citrus sauce, citrus segments, and candied kumquat peels, while I decided to stick with only candied kumquat slices.

Kumquats are another intriguing citrus that defy the stereotype of the typical fruit. Whereas most citrus have sweet flesh and bitter peel and pith, kumquats have pucker-worthy flesh and sugary-sweet peels. Delightful to just pop in the mouth as a sweet-tart treat, they're equally fun to candy and use as a garnish on a variety of dishes.

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I think one of the most difficult aspects of moving about the country every couple of years is the quick disappearance of regional flavors. I grew up on the West Coast, mostly in the Seattle-Tacoma area of Washington State and then spent the last near-two years on the Central Coast of California. And, just as in other regions of our fair nation, we had our indigenous delicacies and delights that are near impossible to find anywhere else.

One of those particular favorites was the Meyer Lemon. Until I departed the Left Coast I had no idea that Meyer lemons were a largely regional fruit, grown mostly in California. Although, to be fair, there's no such thing as a true Meyer lemon anymore, considering that I was born well after the 1950s I'm not going to gripe too much.

Meyer lemons are milder and sweeter than your typical grocery store Eureka lemon and, sliced thin enough, even the peels are edible.

Here on the East Coast I discovered that Meyer lemons are nigh impossible to find unless one knows a grower personally.

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A few weeks ago the folks over at POM Wonderful contacted me about whether or not I would like to try some of their product. I debated on whether or not I wanted to accept free product from a company - even if they didn't explicitly ask me for a review - and eventually came to the decision that I would never post a false review about anything, good or bad, and I always disclose if I received the product gratis.

Which I did.

So, no harm no foul - right?

And since I'm sure pretty much everyone on the planet has had pomegranate juice at this point and POM Wonderful is essentially the only national commercial producer of pomegranate juice, we all know it's pretty damn good.

It tastes good, it's rumored to be the holy grail of antioxidants, and with any luck the consumption of internationally grown pomegranates will help alleviate poverty in the Middle East.(POM Wonderful only uses domestically grown pomegranates, however.)

All that is well and good, but I'm more interested in pairing the juice with pureed pineapple and taking a tropical vacation in my mouth during this cold and dreary December.

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Thick slices of dense, rich banana bread slathered with butter - heaven, eh?

Perhaps not for everyone, but it's not too many steps further for me. I'm a big fan of carbs - essentially anything one can put butter on is my kinda dish. When TA requested a specific recipe that called for banana bread I figured that I'd make a half hearted attempt at injecting some kind of nutrition into this notoriously calories dense treat.

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