I made a fruit plate for Christmas Eve dinner.

<a title="Fruit plate by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/6568153829/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7007/6568153829_1dd6e8d709.jpg" alt="Fruit plate" width="500" height="333" /></a>

While I was digging out the necessary fruit I realized that I also had some Belgian beer that would go perfectly with cutting, pealing and plating a fruit salad. Kriek beer--a sour cheery beer. It's light cheery flavor was exactly what I wanted while pealing more little mandarin oranges than I cared to count.

<a title="Kriek beer  by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/6568155097/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7026/6568155097_ef123f7641.jpg" alt="Kriek beer " width="500" height="333" /></a>

This repetitive activity of chopping and pealing me reminded me of two different things. Isn't that how it always works?<!--more-->

In high school I had a friend J. who always pealed my oranges for me at lunch. He pealed them perfectly in one long continuous strip. He liked the show of it. I liked the fact that I didn't have to peal the orange. I fall into the I like to eat them not peal them camp.

<a title="Kriek beer by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/6568154537/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7152/6568154537_d8ea168cbc.jpg" alt="Kriek beer" width="500" height="333" /></a>

In Washington DC after college, I lived in a group house. We had parties there. Lots of them. We invited our friends and in turn they invited us to their houses. Another group house two blocks away regularly had house parties and every time we showed up at one of their parties, no matter the time of year, I'd be greeted with a loud: "Well, Christmas has come early this year" by one of the guys who lived there. He never greeted me this way anywhere else we'd meet. Just his house. The result was that I always blushed and everyone else within earshot would laugh uncomfortably.

It's funny how I haven't thought about either of those moments in years and prepping a fruit plate for Christmas Eve dinner would bring two just different memories back to me.