At a certain point in autumn, many fruits suddenly become unavailable—unless they are flown in from Latin America or grown in greenhouses. Apples and pears still abound, and there are always oranges and grapefruits, though initially, these are not at their best.

One characteristic of my own diet is that I must eat fresh fruit every day. Sometimes, I’ll eat figs or dates or other dried fruit, but nothing quite matches the experience of biting into a piece of fruit at its best. Fortunately, February has great oranges and tangerines, and you can start getting really good strawberries from Ventura County.

From now until November, a new fresh fruit season has begun. It will reach its height in June, when cherries and apricots are at their height. And later in summer, the freestone peaches and plums are there, at least until September. Then, I must wait for the Fuyu Persimmons to come into season. And after the persimmons, I am back to apples, pears, and dried fruit.

I suspect I became addicted to fresh fruit because, In Parma Heights, Ohio, we had about twenty fruit trees in our back yard. They were great eating, though a misery when it came to mowing the lawn around all the fallen fruit. If my health can be said to be good, I owe it largely to eating habits developed when I was very young.