The first pomelo I bought this season was the size of a bowling ball. The other person in my house does not eat pomelo, and it took me 2 weeks to finish. 

Winter is pomelo season, and sure enough, these big fat babies are everywhere. It's the grapefruit for people who don't like grapefruit. The taste is less tart, and the big meaty segments make it healthy for day-long snackage. Pomelo is also loaded with vitamin C, making it excellent for warding off seasonal cold and flu.

This pomelo I bought yesterday was the smallest in the bin. Still, it took me about half an hour to fully dissect.

Pomelo hackage requires patience and finger muscles. But just set aside 30 to 60 minutes, crank up the música, and you'll be in the zone in no time. With a chef's knife, slice through the rind and go around with the knife until you can pull the two sides apart. Then just pull away the pith and white skin surrounding the flesh. In the end you'll have a tupperware of pomelo chunks to last for weeks. Or days, if you're lucky and have a housemate who will share in the joy.

I am writing this post as I finish the leftovers of this healthy, filling, and quite attractive salad. A grain native to Peru and Bolivia, quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) is a lesser known grain that deserves more attention. The appearance and fluffy texture remind me of couscous, but the ease of cooking makes it as convenient as rice. As a good source for lysine, magnesium, and iron, I really should consider having this more often than white rice.

Quinoa is not very popular in China, but some supermarkets carry quinoa from an organic company based in Hong Kong called Green Dot Dot. I cooked the quinoa in my rice cooker with enough water to cover it by 1 centimeter. In a separate bowl I mixed together cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced crumpled shallots, toasted cumin, cayenne, salt, and pepper. The resulting salad has an interesting textural mix of slightly crunchy quinoa, soft black beans, and juicy cherry tomatoes, punctuated by the alluring scent of toasted cumin.