DATE: Saturday, November 1, 1997            TAG: 9711010677

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Guy Friddell 

                                            LENGTH:   57 lines

EATING GRAPEFRUIT? YOU NEED EITHER PONCHO OR SHARP SPOON

Trucks from Florida will be arriving soon with citrus fruits to be sold at schools and churches. More oranges and grapefruits are consumed per capita in Hampton Roads than in almost any other locality on the East Coast.

Which may explain a low incidence of head colds hereabouts. Even more than an apple a day, an orange keeps the doctor at bay.

Many of us start and end each day with a half of grapefruit or oranges. A prized item in the kitchen is a slim, smallish spoon that comes to a sharp, serrated point for scooping out grapefruit segments.

Mine is the last spoon left from a dozen purchased long ago at Frank Spicer's cookware store on Monticello Avenue. Such special stores help make life bearable.

Three or four Christmases ago I dropped in to buy three or four dozen boxes to distribute to family and friends who, taken aback at first, surely would bless me later at not having juice squirted in their eye or all over their shirt fronts.

Using an ordinary spoon while eating those grapefruits, you had to wear a poncho to survive dry-eyed.

Imagine my chagrin upon learning that Spicer's source for the spoons no longer stocked them.

Just now, at this point, I paused to check Spicer's again. There, Priscilla informed me that she'd consult Sandy.

She called back just now to report that Sandy, telephoning several places, had found that the spoons could be obtained in Norfolk from Bouillabaisse on Colley Avenue.

Now that was going out of the way to be neighborly, and I'm grateful to both those helpful young women at Spicer's. I'll go in there and purchase something or other out of gratitude, a nutmeg grater perhaps.

At Bouillabaisse, Roger said he had a dozen or so sets of two spoons, each set of two pinned to a card. ``Hold one two-piece set for me and order 20 more!'' I told him.

I'd just as soon, dear reader, that you not mention this to any of my out-of-town kin you might meet between now and Christmas.

If they knew they were going to get two grapefruit spoons pinned to a card, it would take all the suspense out of Christmas. I like for people to be bowled over when I yell ``Christmas gift!''

Would you could see their faces when they open the box and find two grapefruit spoons.

What a relief to have done my shopping right here at this word processor, at one fell swoop. But let's just keep it to ourselves.

To order fruit in Norfolk from the Church of the Ascension, call 423-6715 by Nov. 11. Pickup days are Nov. 21 and 22. To order from Maury High School, call 441-2223. Pickup day is Nov. 20.

As other groups disclose sale days, I'll inform you. Meanwhile, don't forget to forget my plans for a surprising Christmas morning. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Spoon

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