Pineapple Princess

Back in high school and college, I had a habit of buying brightly-patterned 60’s mini-dresses that I would never in ten million years be able to fit into.  I probably occasionally had a passing thought that if I got dead skinny I would wear them, but really it was more that they were so pretty and happy I just wanted to have them around.  

One, in deep turquoise, lime green and white, was patterned with flowers and pineapples.  It was so cheerful and fun that I hung it as décor on my wall in the Lafayette St. apartment I shared with the President of the Debate Club back when I lived in New York.  She is small enough to actually sport it once but I think it was snug even on her.

When the Prez was in Seattle for a visit recently, we spent a delicious afternoon picking through every rack at Red Light in the University District, finding some unexpectedly awesome vintage items at a fraction of what she would normally find them for in Manhattan.  

I think we had probably finished reminiscing about my old dress-buying habit in general, and that pineapple dress in particular, literally just a couple minutes before we happened upon a dress made of the same pattern and fabric, albeit in a different color scheme.

I didn’t try it on (why break with tradition?) but it was cheap enough that I bought it anyway for old timey’s sake.  

And what do you know?  Once we got home from a pretty perfect day of trotting around on foot in the sunshine, hitting the farmer’s market and tooling around with no schedule or agenda, I tried it on.  And it didn’t not fit!  I’m probably one more month of 30-Day Shred away from it actually not looking too shabby.  Now I just need to develop a lifestyle where I have a reason to wear a hostess dress patterned with pineapples.  The good news: I already have the right shoes.

Anyway, what do this has to do with food?  Well, pineapples appear to be a recurrent fruit right now in my life, and you’re about to see a bunch of posts featuring this rather oddball fruit.

My mild embarrassment at my total inability to select a decent one, as gently pointed out by Captain Ahab during my run-in at the grocery store, inspired me to research them for a Getting to Know You: Pineapple that I haven’t yet finished to post (but soon will).

Additionally, ever since my friends Amy and Alice both noted their favorite cake is a pineapple upside-down cake, I’ve been a little obsessed with trying to find the best possible recipe for the cake.  I have a possible nominee, but have one more recipe to work through, and will be posting about that soon as well.

I recently posted about one super find on my Mexican grocery store day trip with Sarah, but I didn’t mention the major disappointment of the day, namely our failure to hunt down Pineapple Vinegar, a condiment referenced frequently by Diana Kennedy in her book My Mexico.  I couldn’t find it out, nor could I find it online in any sort of commercially-available form.  

I did find two recipes, so decided that the next time I made some of my pineapple upside-down cake, I would check those out.  What is great about the recipes is they actually use the rinds, not the fruit, so it’s another “Every Part of the Buffalo” winner.  I have made one, but will make the other and post about the results as I see what they turn out to be.

So if you are going to be heading back here any time soon, I hope you like pineapple.  But how could you not?  Much like those silly dresses, there’s something just intrinsically cheerful about them.