Sweeties. In a previous post I mentioned these, describing
them as "along the oroblanco/melogold/Sweetie line [costing] 
50c/lb where grapefruit were 89c." Well, these must be a new
and improved cultivar, because the greenish-yellow skin is
very thin compared to the above-mentioned.

The word on the street is that they're incredibly sweet and
delicious; well, the word is not quite accurate, as such
tend not to be. The fruit is not so much sweeter as less
acid, so by contrast, since the sour receptors on the
tongue are not roused, the brain gets the message SWEET!
SWEET! You may like this. I found half of one quite
sufficient and then started to wish for the regular thing.

The rind, though thin like a modern commercial grapefruit,
was excessively bitter, just like the grapefruit I hated
when I was a kid and that people have tried to make me
think my memory exaggerated, and the segment membranes
were a similar tough throwback to those fruit. The thing
I hated most about those original ones is that they
ruined my taste buds for up to an hour afterward, making 
everything exceedingly bitter and strange, and after 
eating one of these the same thing happened.

The claim is made that their flavor is more complex than
either the orange or the grapefruit, but I don't find that 
to be so - rather the taste and aroma profiles are skewed 
to our normal frame of reference and thus unfamiliar.

==
Cuties. It must be the end of season, because the prices
are up, and the size, quality, flavor, and sweetness are
down. The last batch are dryish and not tasty, though I
console myself with the idea that they're going to give
me some vitamin C.

Why does the consuming public seem to require the farmers
to put cutesy names on the produce? On second thought,
don't answer that.

==
Bee Sweet Cara Cara oranges (more) - those had been such a
hit that we bought a 7-lb bag, Lilli squealing, oh, look,
they're the same price as regular oranges (of course, you
could get a single regular one for 79c or so), so into 
the basket. These were softer and mushier than the last
batch, even the first one out of the bag, but the flavor
was strong and penetrating, though not notably superior,
and the sweetness was supreme, probably due to the lower
acid noted regarding other recent citrus cultivars.

==
Stater Bros. unsweetened 100% grapefruit juice from
concentrate with added ingredients. Ingredients: filtered
water, grapefruit juice concentrate, ascorbic acid (vitamin
C) ingredient not found in regular grapefruit juice. I'm in
a phase where none of my meds is supposed to interact with
this, and I do like it, so I've been going to town. This
version is shelf stable and runs a buck less than that in
the refrigerated case, plus I think it tastes as good. I
got two bottles that had been right next to each other on
the shelf, and they were quite different, though both were
in range of what one might expect. One was medium pink and
exemplary, the kind that you might not mind mixing into your
cocktail, even though it wasn't white. Good balance of sweet
and tart, fairly intense flavor, medium bitter. The other
was a caricature - big pinkness, sweetness, bitterness,
strong flavor that would interfere with food or alcohol.
Not bad per se, but something to drink with care in sips.
There is supposed to be an origin statement stamped onto
the caps. In neither case was this true. Speaking of not true,
riddle me this: since when is vitamin C an ingredient not
found in regular grapefruit juice?

==
Betty Crocker au gratin potatoes - Lilli had these in the
cupboard, I don't know why, and wanted them with her steak.
You reconstitute the sauce and dump the dehydrated spud
slices in, and throw this mess in a 450 oven for 25 minutes.
I took a teaspoonful for the sake of science: the potato part
was crumbly and grainy and tasted of generic starch, while
the sauce exhibited little of the expected cheese but tasted
rather like cream of chicken soup. Not horrible, just kind of
bland and mildly offputting.

P.S. I got on her case about this, and she made some from
scratch. Cabot some kind of sharp Cheddar, cream, real
potatoes and onions, Michael's blend of 17 secret herbs and
spices (okay, 5). They were Good with a capital G, but guess
who prefers Betty Crocker's cardboard potatoes?

==
Flamin' Hot Cheetos puffs - as distinguished from the crunchy
ones, which I prefer, but they didn't have those in the
flamin' version, so I got these, which are okay but rather
more like Styrofoam. The better, as it turns out, to showcase
the heat: their subjective heat was more like the xxxtra hot,
and the pepper extract taste was prominent; otherwise they
were as expected, edible but not moreish.

==
Lone Star cinnamon roll (Lone Star Consolidated Foods) - 
Lilli thinks these are better than the local store brand
despite never having tried the latter. She buys a pack of
6 every time we go into Stater's - I'm more than half
convinced that they're the only reason she overcomes her
misgivings about SARS to go. So I tasted them. They're 
miraculously both dryish and mushyish at the same time.
Decent cinnamon vanilla aroma. On the palate waves of salt,
sugar, and yeast, in that order and abundance. Cinnamon is
a bit of an afterthought. Vanilla is mostly in the frosting,
which is about the right amount, bordering on too little. The
package says "may contain traces of pecans" - vain hope!