Strange fruits

Pardon the random allusion. I thought it sounded less, ah, sketchy (i.e. compelling to the wrong sort of reader), than what I originally wanted to write.

My colleague brought in some walnuts grown on his own tree. He lives on a mini-farm "between the rivers" in the Netherlands. Anyway these walnuts have the following, unfamiliar characteristic: you can open many of them with your hands, and almost all of them come apart in two neat halves. Also, they are small, a bit dullish, and sandy from having lain in the dirt before being collected.

The walnuts I grew up with, grown by my grandfather on the Ranch, were large, shiny and difficult to open. Almost impossible to open without breaking part of the shell. Rarely indeed did someone get them to open in two neat halves, and great was our esteem for that someone when s/he did succeed.

Ah! Memories. Get you some walnuts from California's Central Valley anytime you can. They should be as famous as the Raisins.