Oatmeal with pomegranates reminds me of my Alaska spring oatmeal with lingonberries. Deliciously tart red jewels, yum!

While I can’t grow pomegranates in Virginia, there are lots of options for persimmons. I can forage for tiny native persimmons, and ate a few this year. The cultivated varieties are bigger with fewer seeds. I grow ‘Ruby’, an American persimmon which produced a lot last year and only a few this year.

My “Nikita’s Gift”, an American Asian hybrid is loaded for the second year in a row. The smaller persimmons pictured above are that variety.

A friend gave us some Izu persimmons that he is growing and now I want an Asian Izu tree. The large, delicious non-astringent fruit are pictured above.

I am eating most of the Izu’s fresh like an apple. I am eating the best squishy Nikita’s Gift fresh, but mostly drying and freezing them. Preserving turns the astringent ones sweet so that I don’t have to be so picky as I harvest. If this year is similar to last year I will continue to pick fruit through December, feeling rich as I harvest goodies in the winter.

Happy Thanksgiving!