how to pick a ripe _________

All my life, I was blessed with a grocery store that changed their produce selection based on what was in season, so the fruit in abundance was always the best fruit. This made it easy to figure out what variety to buy, and since most of it was fairly ripe, it was easy to pick a good piece of fruit, too.

When I moved to New Jersey, I realized how lucky I'd been. I also realized how odd people thought my thorough inspections of fruit and vegetables were. But two heads of broccoli can provide very different results, and if I'm going to be paying that much for a nectarine it better be a damn good nectarine.

So how do you pick? Well, first pick by season. You should probably stick with things that are in season in your hemisphere, because long commutes don't bode well for most things.