Fruit

Lee sits on a bar stool in a plexiglass box near a highway offramp in central Taiwan. It's late afternoon and the 29-year-old is dressed in a red negligee, a fake rose planted firmly between her breasts. "I work from noon to midnight, and it's psychologically tiring," she says. "Furthermore," she adds, pointing to her husband a few yards away, "he takes all the money." Before you jump to conclusions, she isn't selling her body. In fact, she's using her body to sell . . .

Wolves, bears, frogs and other wild things aren't the only sorts of endangered species. Rare breeds of domestic animals such as Red Wattle pigs and Narragansett turkeys are also threatened with extinction. So are thousands of varieties of vegetables and fruits. Just as wild plants and animals have their environmental champions, so foodies are seeking to preserve the biodiversity of cultivated species and rescue rare delicacies such as California's Sebastopol Gravenstein apple.

The other Sunday I was standing in the middle of a swarm of shoppers at my local Long Beach farmers market, trying to decide between getting more of John Tenerelli's terrific Fantasia nectarines or yet another box of Garcia Family Farms' figs, so ripe they were almost falling apart. I was in one of those cook's reveries: Nectarines or figs? Or maybe another Galia melon from Weiser's? And what did I feel like doing with them? Sometimes I think half the fun of cooking is thinking about it beforehand.

Is it possible to fall in love with a fruit? Six or seven years ago a young Web producer named Chip Brantley was browsing the Culver City farmers market when he encountered a yellow-skinned, outrageously sweet fruit that changed his life. It was a Pluot, probably the Flavor Queen variety, one of the first and tastiest of a series of hybrids of plum and apricot, with plum character predominant, bred by the Zaiger family of Modesto. Brantley had never heard of Pluots, and was astounded to hear that such hybrids existed.

It was on walks with his dog Scout that Rick Nahmias became increasingly troubled by the citrus fruit he saw all around his Valley Glen neighborhood, dropping to the ground, rotting, when so many people were hungry. In Glassell Park Hills, on her walks, Hynden Walch saw food going to waste in her neighbors' yards, and she began running through ideas for how to use it. It was the simplest of connections: fresh food that's free or nearly so, and people to eat it. Nahmias and Walch, and others like them, are working at an intriguing crossroads: using e-mail, blogs, Facebook and Twitter to foster old-fashioned networks among their neighbors, or among like-minded people looking to make their world a little better.

Emily and Danny lived on a farm, and it was time to plant vegetables. Father plowed the field. Mother, Emily and Danny divided the area into neat vegetable beds. "How long will we wait before we can taste the vegetables?" asked Danny. "A few months," his father said. "That long?" complained Danny. Danny's mother looked at him a long time, then said, "Let me tell you a story. "Long, long ago, the Roman Emperor Hadrian rode his splendid horse by a small hut, near the ancient city of Tiberias, in the Galilee, today Israel.

A Northern California grocery chain has recalled cantaloupes sold in its stores after detecting salmonella in the fruit during routine testing. Raley's, a chain centered in the Sacramento area but with locations as far south as Salinas and in Nevada, has voluntarily recalled 1,120 cartons of Del Monte whole cantaloupes because of possible contamination. The store said cantaloupes currently on its shelves are not affected. The chain operates grocery stores under the names Raley's, Bel Air, Nob Hill and Food Sources.

Neglected for decades, the quince seems an improbable candidate for revival today, when consumers demand sweet, ready-to-eat fresh fruit. Why is it, then, that in recent years three books of quince recipes and lore have appeared, the fruit increasingly is featured at high-end restaurants, and half a dozen of these have even been named after it? "The quince is the poster child of 'Slowness,' " suggests Ben Watson, an author and food activist who organized a tasting of quince varieties for Slow Food's Ark of Taste committee.

The potentially destructive white-striped fruit fly has been discovered in the eastern San Gabriel Valley, prompting the state to begin an eradication effort today. It's the first time this variety of fruit fly has been found in the Western Hemisphere, state officials said. Seven of the flies have been trapped in the La Verne area, and thousands of traps are going to be placed there in hopes of eradicating the insects. "The fly is native to tropical Southeast Asia, where it damages the fruit of many trees, most notably guava and mango," according to the state Department of Food and Agriculture.

Poseidon's Veil Hannah, 12 Magic Pen Kids Santa Ana In the shadows of Selemar, a mountain lives. And from that mountain flows Poseidon's Veil. A shimmering silver waterfall springs like liquid diamonds from the stones, so that from the crags springs trees of light whose fruit is golden orbs of light. Whoever consumes this delicacy of death causes Poseidon to stomp his foot in anger and the world shatters. -- Boo! I'm Bored Sydney, 10 Oak Creek Elementary Irvine Being bored is like staring at a blank piece of paper that never ends.