American in Spain

Una Cereza Por Favor

May 24, 2007

I was so pleased to see cherries in the supermarket yesterday. They were gorgeous and shiny with a deep red color. As I was consuming them for dessert last night, I was still marveling at how perfect they were. The true cherry archetype. These pictures are "ripe" for some frame breaking, I think.

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Check out the reflection of the white surface.

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Even these perfect specimens have little blemishes when viewed up close. Profound, that.

Now for a little about the title. The word for "cherry" in Spanish is "cereza", which is dangerously close to the word "cerveza", which, as you probably know, means "beer". Chances are that if you went to a bar and ordered a cherry, they'd know what you meant and give you a beer. And if you went to a fruit stand and ordered a box of "beer", they'd probably give you cherries (since you've probably had enough beer already if you're ordering from a fruit stand).

So make sure you pronounce that V in cerveza. Oh, and you pronounce it like a B. In Spain, it'd be, "ther-beth-a". Cherries cheers to that!