I thought being a grown up would be different

May 31, 2016 1:29 PM

"My other fruit bowl has a teapot in it." "Fruit, in my fruit bowl? Are you mad?" Readers share pictures of their fruit bowls with the Standard Issue
posted by Helga-woo (126 comments total)

I've typed fruit so many times now it looks wrong. Fruit, fruit, fruit, fruit.
posted by Helga-woo at 1:30 PM on May 31, 2016 [16 favorites]

Lemons, peaches, avocados. I feel so pedestrian.
posted by zamboni at 1:33 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

I thought being a grown up would be different

Truer words have never been spoken. My fruit bowl has... catnip for a cat who no longer lives with me, a cellphone charger for a phone I never use, and some old onion skins.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:35 PM on May 31, 2016 [10 favorites]

5 Bananas
1 zucchini
2 onions
1 shallot
posted by Sophie1 at 1:37 PM on May 31, 2016

Who actually owns a dedicated bowl that is only for fruit, though?

I mean, I get fruit, and when I get fruit I put that fruit in bowls, but it's not like that's those bowls' sole purposes. When I need a bowl to hold fruit I get one of my mixing bowls or a random platter or a salad bowl or something like that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:40 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Super adult tip: don't ever get married unless you're prepared to have a home full of bowls. So many fucking bowls. Why do people do this?

You're getting married; here's a bowl; enjoy your bowl; it's a nice bowl; this is what I think of when I think of the two of you. You are a bowl to me. When you look at this bowl know that you mean the bowl world to us.

We have a few bananas in our fruit bowl. The other fruit bowl is mostly phone chargers and USB cables. The other other fruit bowl has a pair of sunglasses someone left at our place, a few random bluetooth widgets and a pair of scissors. These are just the bowls that are visible.

If you ever come to visit us, consider this a TW: bowls.

Fuck bowls.
posted by phooky at 1:41 PM on May 31, 2016 [36 favorites]

Now "bowl" looks wrong
posted by phooky at 1:41 PM on May 31, 2016 [20 favorites]

Is this something I would need to own a fruit bowl to understand?
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:42 PM on May 31, 2016 [10 favorites]

My kitchen fruit bowl contains fruit -- two bananas and an apple. It had a peach in it until yesterday when I noticed the peach had mold on it. There is a bag of oranges next to, but not in, the fruit bowl.

The fruit bowl on my dining room table currently contains a couple action figures, a paperclip, a few batteries of unknown charge level, some pennies, a photo that fell out of a photo album, and a few small rocks that my child or dog brought into the house.
posted by erst at 1:42 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

My problem is that I forget to move the fruit from the fruit bowl into the fridge before it gets all mushy. Or I do move it into the fridge, but then forget to eat it, because I think "mmm, fruit. That lives in the fruit bowl. Why would I take three whole steps over there to look for fruit anyplace else?" Adulting is hard.

In conclusion, fruit bowls are a land of contrast.
posted by zachlipton at 1:43 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Who are you people putting things in your fruit bowls that aren't fruit? I live with two dedicated fruit eaters, we can have 2 or 3 bowls in the house full of fruits (and sometimes potatoes) and more fruit in the fridge sometimes.

Random items get left on the coffee table or that little windowsill next to the door, everyone knows that.
posted by emjaybee at 1:43 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Isnt this what the fridge is for?
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:44 PM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

I don't need a fruit bowl because all fruit I bring home is destined to sit on my kitchen side table on top of the heap of reusable shopping bags I never remember to take with me and languish until I remember I have fruit, at which point it's gone a bit off and is no longer suitable for eating.

This is a system that works for me.
posted by phunniemee at 1:44 PM on May 31, 2016 [9 favorites]

On review it occurs to me that I'm not sure what makes a bowl a "fruit bowl" instead of just a ceramic/wood/glass bowl. I think one of ours is actually for trifle, but we never make trifle, so it's full of bananas right now.
posted by emjaybee at 1:45 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

Speaking as a grown up who puts basically all fruit in the refrigerator (other than bananas, because gross black peels) by default, do those of you who keep your fruit in bowls find that they spoil more quickly? I'm used to buying a bag of apples and having them last in the refrigerated fruit drawer for at least a couple of weeks if I don't get to them right away, but I wonder how fast they'd go bad if I had them in a bowl instead.
posted by Strange Interlude at 1:45 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

Isnt this what the fridge is for?

This is just to say
that the fruit bowl we received
upon our marriage
is in the icebox,
full of plums.
posted by MonkeyToes at 1:45 PM on May 31, 2016 [30 favorites]

I don't need a fruit bowl

How are you going to sell stuff on Craigslist, then?
posted by jedicus at 1:46 PM on May 31, 2016 [28 favorites]

I keep tax documents in mine.
posted by holborne at 1:46 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Super adult tip: don't ever get married unless you're prepared to have a home full of bowls. So many fucking bowls. Why do people do this?

You're getting married; here's a bowl; enjoy your bowl; it's a nice bowl; this is what I think of when I think of the two of you. You are a bowl to me. When you look at this bowl know that you mean the bowl world to us.

THIS. HOLY CRAP. IS THIS A THING?

I needed to have a few bowls for a Girl Scout meeting a couple months ago, and my coleader was like hey, I'll bring them, no problem, and she showed up with AT LEAST ten bowls, and they were nice bowls, too, like fancy mixing bowl sets, stainless steel, ceramic, wood...real nice stuff. And I was like "oh my god, how do you have so many bowls?" and she just shrugged and responded "I'm married" like that would explain it all away.

I had no idea.
posted by phunniemee at 1:46 PM on May 31, 2016 [24 favorites]

A phone charger, a flashlight, two dead batteries, a box of blank checks, and a bunch of rubber bands. No fruit, though.
posted by easily confused at 1:47 PM on May 31, 2016

I love the woman who has Haribo in hers.

At first glance my fruit bowl is that of a grown up - bananas - not even black yet! - apples and (most importantly) limes for gin. But on closer inspection you will see that it is in fact the bottom part of a toiletries gift set container that I got for Christmas. One day, says I, I will buy an adult fruit bowl. That day has not yet arrived.
posted by billiebee at 1:48 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Our fruit bowl currently has one pear in it. It had two pears in it last week; when I ate that pear it was too hard.

When I finally get around to trying to eat the second pear, it will be too soft. Such is the way of the fruit bowl.
posted by yhbc at 1:48 PM on May 31, 2016 [12 favorites]

Yeah, the bowls upon marriage. It's a thing. We have several. And napkin rings. Bowls and napkin rings.
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:49 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

We have a fruit bowl, but it lives in a cabinet when it isn't occupied with food. It gets used for bread more often than fruit, though.
posted by jedicus at 1:49 PM on May 31, 2016

Apples keep pretty well outside the fridge, honestly. Oranges too. Soft fruits like peaches you should just eat within a few days or they're no good regardless of where you store them. We only put grapes in the fridge, usually, or cut-up pineapple.

Also small open containers of vinegar are good to put around your fruit bowl to help repel fruit flies.

Our guests missed the bowl memo when we got married, I don't think we got a single one! We had to buy them all ourselves.
posted by emjaybee at 1:50 PM on May 31, 2016

Right, lemme now see if I can remember what we got in the various bowls in the kitchen right now:

* One small Japanese rice serving bowl has been repurposed to hold unpeeled garlic cloves. My roommate started doing this - I used to just take one clove off the head and put the rest of the head back in the hanging thing where the garlic lives, but then when she used garlic once, she took all the cloves off the head, used one and put the rest in that little bowl that sits on the counter, and it is handy as all shit.

* There is a small ice cream bowl sitting on the bar that has about eight lemons in it. I'm on a lemon kick lately, though, so we'll probably go through them quick.

* Usually there's fruit sitting on a bowl on the kitchen table, either my roommate's fruit or my own (I'm starting my CSA soon, so I'll soon have a metric ass-ton of various kinds of fruit on the table, but also because it's the CSA haul I'll be likely to eat it soon because wow super fresh fruit that actually tastes good).

All the other random detritus is in baskets or boxes rather than bowls.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:53 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

You're getting married; here's a bowl
I like getting people cutting boards because they are tools, shields, and weapons all in one. Most bowls are not very good at all three of those things.

I also have a fruit bowl with only fruit in it, but I dislike it because all non-banana fruit belongs in the fridge. I get terrible gas due to fiber overload sometimes because I feel obligated to eat all the fruit before it goes bad, but that just makes my wife buy more fruit immediately and I'm not sure she understands what it is doing to my atmosphere and there's a lesson in there about communication, but it's hard to communicate when other people don't want to be in a room with you so now and then I just stop eating it for a few days and let it go bad, but then I forget to mention that there was a reason I smelled so bad earlier and if I just threw out the fruit bowl she would take it as a judgment thing instead of an olfactory thing because who throws out a bowl to cure their chronic gassiness? That makes about as much sense as using a fruit bowl instead of a fridge in the first place.

Banana hangers, on the other hand, are great.
posted by mattamatic at 2:00 PM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

My fruit bowl basically 40% bananas, nectarines, avocado and various citrus and 55% onions and garlic and 5% thank you notes that have needed stamps since March. It is also my lasagna dish because that's the only thing that fits on that part of the counter and holy hell my kitchen is tiny.
posted by thivaia at 2:01 PM on May 31, 2016

look people if you don't keep a bunch of bowls in your house how are future archaeologists going to learn anything about your culture and trading partners and shit
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:06 PM on May 31, 2016 [21 favorites]

it is in fact the bottom part of a toiletries gift set container

That's DIY AF, billiebee. Bee proud!
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:06 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

YES! I am a fruit bowl champ. For the first time in my life, I am an adult:

Fruit bowl: various stone fruit and a couple limes.
Onion/potato bowl: Some healthy looking potatoes, a couple onions, and several heads of garlic in various states of disassembly.
posted by latkes at 2:06 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Mine has 3D glasses, some miniature toy groceries from a supermarket promotion last year, and a carrot (which I knitted a few years ago when I wanted to learn to knit).
posted by Soulfather at 2:06 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

8 bananas
3 tomatos
3 mini croissants in a reusable snack bag
a small bag of something that is probably tea but possibly catnip
dried mango and cranberries in a small tupperware container
bag of sapino mini balsam fir lozenges
half a roll of paper towels
25 cents
a pencil
a container of dental floss
four broken premium plus crackers

You should see the front of my fridge.
posted by Cuke at 2:07 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

I try to keep a fruit bowl and a vegetable bowl, but not everyone plays along (perhaps because I have not said anything about my design).

The fruit bowl proper currently has loquats, peaches, and other stone fruit. There's more peaches not yet in the bowl that would be in a paper bag if I had any but is currently in the large box they came in.

The vegetable bowl has a couple partial heads of garlic, bananas, and mangos that I really should eat or make into a shrub. And some packets of soy sauce and Taco Bell hot sauce. We don't have any avocados or tomatoes, and there were a lot of onions so they got put in the cabinet so the one left is still there.

There's also the hanging basket that was useful for two apartments ago. It is collapsed and on the microwave, holding two boxes of plasticware, a catnip cat toy, a beer cozy, a pair of scissors, a sharpie, and a pile of expired coupons.
posted by mountmccabe at 2:11 PM on May 31, 2016

We got a nice fruit bowl for a wedding present or possibly a Christmas present. I think it was handmade by a fancy artsy potter and cost a lot, and is a "nice thing" in the sense of "this is why we can't have nice things." It's consistently held fruit, sometimes with onions or the occasional potato. But it always has some produce in it, and never has non-produce.

The rest of the kitchen, and the rest of the house, is not quite so tidy and logical. But the fruit bowl is the one small thing I can successfully, consistently be an adult at.
posted by Metroid Baby at 2:14 PM on May 31, 2016

Your fruit bowl is for fruit. Your stuff bowls are for stuff. And yes, my stuff bowls outnumber my fruit bowls.
posted by redsparkler at 2:15 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

TIL we eat a lot more fruit than other people. We have a banana-hangy-thing and three fruit bowls. Sometimes one is in use, sometimes all three are in use and there's more fruit on the counter. Two is average. If one's not in use, I just stack it inside one of the others.
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:18 PM on May 31, 2016

had to throw them out. they were conspiring
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:19 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

An order for a blood workup
The last paper towel from a roll
Liquid nails
A large bell ball bird toy that Beaker is afraid of
Blue nitrile exam glove that I borrowed from my last hospital visit
Body spray
A roll of picture hanging wire
A Harley Davidson pocket watch belt holder
Two Pilot pens
A stylus
A clear plastic something cover
A smaller bird toy that Beaker already tore apart
A pay check (that's where that went!)
A BIC pen
A red crystal necklace
A Jolly Roger Zippo lighter
An Allen wrench
Loose change
A paper clip

My fruit bowl is huge, it holds multitudes.
posted by Splunge at 2:20 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

a small bag of something that is probably tea but possibly catnip

BEST

You can make tea for humans from it either way.
posted by mountmccabe at 2:21 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

My house gets hot enough during the day to liquefy the butter in the butter dish. Fruit not in the fridge is going to go bad.

Also, if you put anything in with bananas, it'll rot faster (because ethylene.) I've always been disappointed that the typical still life with one or two of everything is kind of a disaster if you have it out for very long.
posted by blnkfrnk at 2:24 PM on May 31, 2016

I gave up having a fruit bowl because it always just had moldy stuff in it. I do have an onion bin that only has onions in it.

And I have orange and lemon trees, so I have fruit in the yard, on the patio table, on the grill table, on the step ladder, next to the dog bowl, rotting in the bushes, and on the pool cover. Some of that is moldy too. A whole tree is a lot of oranges. The lemons I mostly use up.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:25 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh, I forgot the kitchen fruit bowl.
posted by Splunge at 2:26 PM on May 31, 2016

I bought a handmade vintage ceramic fruit bowl at a thrift store last autumn for 50 cents. I never had one before. It's very pretty; gold with green and brown detailing, very 1970s. Right now, it has bananas in it that I had better eat in the next day or so.

The same bowl would probably cost $50 or $60 at Williams-Sonoma.

/a-dull-ting?
posted by droplet at 2:28 PM on May 31, 2016

I've always been disappointed that the typical still life with one or two of everything is kind of a disaster if you have it out for very long.

Just claim it's an ephemeral sculptural work in the tradition of Dutch Renaissance vanitas paintings.
posted by jedicus at 2:32 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm glad somebody brought up the Craigslist connection.

(Someday we'll find it, the Craigslist Connection, the Askers, the Guessers, and me)
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:37 PM on May 31, 2016 [10 favorites]

we have one of those hanging fruit basket thingies and it contains:

(top level)
too many lemons, forced upon me by my mom from her lemon tree on my last visit
a really old, hard lime

(middle level)
rice crackers
two avocados in varying stages of ripeness
a shallot
maybe a banana

(the bottom catch-all level)
three bags of sourdough bread, each only containing the bread butts
pumpkin seeds
stale crackers
onion skin
a couple of jalapenos
posted by burgerrr at 2:43 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Zuchinni, apples, lemon, lime, avocado, cucumbers, cabbage, contained in 2 fruit bowls.

But, I keep onions and garlic and peppers in my hanging fruit baskets.

(I'd keep some of this in the fridge, but I have a really tiny fridge.)

Too many homegrown lemons is an impossibility. Quarter em, heavily heavily salt, and pack firmly in a bell jar for a month or two; preserved lemon rind goes amazingly in many middle-eastern dishes.
posted by joeyh at 2:47 PM on May 31, 2016

We totally use our fruit bowl for fruit. It's somewhere between quirky and rustic and I don't recall if I made it or if my SO did. But we also have a dedicated plate we made for poutine, and a wide, heavy low stoneware bowl we use for making guac from two avocados, and tall noodle bowls with a recurve lip.

I guess what I'm saying is slowly all our commercial pottery is being replaced by the weird stuff we make. But you can be damn sure when I sell my car there will be a bowl of fruit in the passenger seat for the photos.
posted by a halcyon day at 2:47 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

Marriage: all our commercial pottery is being replaced by the weird stuff we make.
posted by MonkeyToes at 2:49 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

Fruit that is unripe goes in the fruit bowl. Ripe fruit goes in the fridge, unless it is bananas. Ripe bananas go in bread.
I have:
Two onions
Part of a head of garlic
Two navel oranges
An apple
Three pears have graduated to the fridge today. Congratulations, pears!
posted by domo at 2:52 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

So many fucking bowls. Why do people do this?

From where I'm sitting, I can only see two bowls. I'm sure there are more, but they've been there for so long that I can't see them any more. Are cups bowls? Should I count the cup for pencils and the cup for sharpies? And topographically, my bookshelf is a group of connected bowls. AAaaaaagggh! They're everywhere!
posted by Twang at 2:53 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

I clicked on that link thinking it was going to be pictures of fruit bowls, each containing one of these.
posted by lagomorphius at 2:54 PM on May 31, 2016

A fruit bowl without any fruit in it is just a bowl. Any bowl can be turned into a fruit bowl by adding fruit to it. The whole premise of this experiment is flawed!
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:59 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

We have about 5 bowls on our counter, two actual grown ass fruit bowls usually with a good amount of fruit as we have two small kids, a small bowl for garlic shallots and ginger, a random shit bowl, and a random sharp n' pointy shit bowl that also is a home for some matches.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 3:11 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Garlic, shallots, Lego cyborg. Fruit goes in the fridge or else the fruit flies take over the universe.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:12 PM on May 31, 2016

And half our drawers are junk drawers, though all the adhesives seemed to have coalesced into a dedicated drawer. And of course you can't over look the immersion blenders n' trivets drawer. Also there's been a random tiny beads and small rocks dish that has lived on our counter for years. Who's fucking house is this!?
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 3:14 PM on May 31, 2016 [5 favorites]

Who actually owns a dedicated bowl that is only for fruit, though?

Not only do I have one I remember where we got it. And it wasn't a wedding gift!

We were touristing in Golden Gate Park with out-of-town visitors (since we ourselves live in the South Bay) and there was a building next to the carousel where a local potter's group was having a sale of slightly off items - our bowl has a tiny imperfection along the rim. Anyway, my wife poked around for a while and next thing I knew we had a fruit bowl.

As far as why so many bowls, I don't really know, but I know that SNL got it right.
posted by GuyZero at 3:20 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

I just looked, and there's one shriveled lemon in our fruit bowl. The rest of the fruit is in plastic baggies clustered just *outside* the fruit bowl. I...am questioning so many things right now.
posted by merriment at 3:22 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

Right now all my fruit bowls (married twice) are empty, because I got tired of putting some fruit in the bowl for pretty + immediacy and other fruit in the fridge for longevity, only to constantly end up with rotten fruit in the bowl and nothing in the fridge. The people have voted, they only want to eat fridge fruit, so the bowls just sit there looking all aesthetic. I guess.

I do have an onion bowl and a garlic bowl, which always have onions and garlic, but they're hidden. Potatoes don't seem to keep in my house for some reason so now I buy them on demand.
posted by Mchelly at 3:26 PM on May 31, 2016

I love apples; I have consumed more than an apple a day for a long time, so I've had a fruit bowl since I was probably 19. For a long time I had a nice cut-glass bowl that I found at a thrift store, but I knocked it to the floor some years ago. I searched for years for an authentic 70s-era banana hook/holder, but was finally able to find one about five years ago. I have a glorious carved wooden box for my homebrew nut/dried fruit/granola mix. Now I just need a solution for oranges, but that's really a seasonal thing, so I don't sweat it. For some of us, fruit and its containment is obviously very important.

All of the other crap goes in one of two junk drawers: household junk and kitchen junk (don't ask me to delineate what makes certain junk household and certain junk kitchen - the wounds from that particular domestic battle are still fresh). We have a bunch of other ceramic holders around the kitchen because the local Uni's ceramics dept. has an annual sale and man are those kids talented, and totally unaware of the value of their craft and talent.
posted by eclectist at 3:47 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

I see a lot of onions, potatoes and garlic in the lists here. Do you guys use it fast? Because, I live alone and unless I put my Potatoes/onions/garlic in brown paper bags and away from light in a shelf; they all start sprouting eyes and shoots.

My fruit bowl currently has Campari Tomatoes and Bananas. I need to make a good south Indian Tomato Rasam tonight when I get home.
posted by indianbadger1 at 3:49 PM on May 31, 2016

It was bananas and an avocado but this thread has made me doubt the avocado so I threw it in the green bin and now it's just bananas, and frankly they are on the turn.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 3:51 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Room temperature fruit is gross. Ugh, warm apples. Oranges? I'm gagging a little just contemplating it.

Other than bananas, which I usually chill a little before I eat them anyway, everything goes in the fridge.

We have a wire rack on the counter ostensibly for fruit where the bananas live, but there's also so much other junk in there. Too much to enumerate. At least one flashlight and a Bluetooth speaker. Supermarket ads. An unactivated credit card.

But no fruit right now.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:00 PM on May 31, 2016

My fruit bowl contains a single temporary tattoo. Up until a couple days ago it also contained one (1) apple, and then my husband noticed the apple was rotten.
posted by town of cats at 4:05 PM on May 31, 2016

One key ring with no keys on it
One banana
One cat (probably brought the key ring with her)
posted by tzikeh at 4:09 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

I s2g I have never felt less like an adult than I have after reading this thread.

You all have bowls just, like, hanging out around the house on top of tables and things? And you put stuff in the bowls?

I mean, I got decorative stuff, pictures and art and knick-knacks and shit on the walls and bookcases and tables, and I have places where I (hopefully. . . .) have put the junk from my pockets or whatever, but . . . . . . the idea that decorative bowls are de rigueur for adulting, and on top of that you put crap you don't know what else to do with in the bowls which looks "nicer" than having it spread around all higgledy-piggledy is an idea that apparently just zoomed right past me when I wasn't paying attention.

Seriously, I thought decorative/fruit bowls were something my suburban parents picked up from Good Housekeeping magazine in the 70's, I had no idea they were still a Thing. Mind blown.
posted by soundguy99 at 4:11 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

We have a half-dozen fancy bowls hanging out in our living room. The only "art" we have on the walls right now is a piece of wrapping paper from a gift someone gave us that we blu-tacked to the wall because we thought it looked kinda cool. I wouldn't associate bowls with adulting per se.
posted by phooky at 4:20 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Our bowl has a bowl in it, which in turn contains apples (for my snacks) and bananas and avocados (for smoothies), both of which slowly deplete until the last twenty percent, which remains untouched until it rots. Then we know it's time to shop.
posted by Scattercat at 4:42 PM on May 31, 2016

Four purple potatoes, two lemons, one orange, one shallot. Multigrain bread and potatoes in bag adjacent to, but not actually in, bowl.

My company provides fruit to all our floors every Monday (Tuesday this week.) Man, software developers are like friggin' locusts when presented with free fruit. What's great is that nobody else seems to like cherry tomatoes, at least on Monday mornings, so it's a win for me!
posted by MarvinTheCat at 4:46 PM on May 31, 2016

The bananas are in the spare mixer bowl. The bowl that I think is intended to be a fruit bowl has paper napkins in it.
posted by enf at 4:47 PM on May 31, 2016

My fruit bowl contains some ginger and two cloves of garlic. Am I doing this wrong? (I'm probably not even supposed to be storing ginger and garlic together am I? I'm probably going to regret this, next time I cook Thai.)

To be fair it's not strictly a bowl, it's actually one of those square Pyrex baking dishes, because I don't have enough bowls to just bench one for semipermanent fruit duty. But it tends to have more vegetables than fruit, because I'm not so much of a fruit person I guess. So it's less a Fruit Bowl® and more an Open-Air Designated Storage Zone for Non-Refrigerated Produce.

and I'm supposed to have stuff on my walls too? christ this adult thing just never ends

There was a lemon in there until day before yesterday but I ate it.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 4:48 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Types of people represented in this thread and their respective bowls
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 4:55 PM on May 31, 2016 [6 favorites]

Super adult tip: don't ever get married unless you're prepared to have a home full of bowls. So many fucking bowls.

You get married. You have a lovely service. You return to your shared home. Your spouse notices a bowl. You did not register for a bowl. No one gifted you a bowl. No one handed you a bowl. No one had access to your home. And yet there is a bowl.

It demands to be fed.

It demands.... fruit.
posted by stet at 5:01 PM on May 31, 2016 [14 favorites]

I took apart two of those three-hanging-basket things and rearranged them into three two-hanging-basket things, which now fit under the kitchen shelves. Dark corner has two bell peppers, one avocado, two sweet potatoes, some boiling potatoes (wrapped in a black towel). Next to the fridge has two grapefruit, an orange, a cup made of longhorn horn that we haven't found a use for, and an enormous number of apples because I made cookies instead. Between the sink and the stove is the garlic, shallots, and onions. (We call that basket the Spem.)

And there are two lovely bowls for keys and odd ends on our hall tables, completely buried under larger, odder ends.
posted by clew at 5:03 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

one apple (gala, organic) and one rubber band (purple, from asparagus)
posted by poffin boffin at 5:03 PM on May 31, 2016

don't ever get married unless you're prepared to have a home full of bowls. So many fucking bowls. Why do people do this?

It's a warning.
posted by clew at 5:04 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Last year, I bought a dedicated red fruit bowl to fit with my new grey tablecloth and red place mats. Sometimes I keep apples or clementines in it, but mostly it's sad and empty on the table, pushed to the edge so I can fit my current puzzle on the table.

Right now, it has a baby watermelon in it. I think I'll have to cut it up and have some now!
posted by gemmy at 5:14 PM on May 31, 2016

In late antiquity in the Mediterranean people used bowls with writing on them to protect themselves against demons. Evidently demons hate bowls.

Incantation bowl
posted by bukvich at 5:21 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

We don't have a fruit bowl. May I stay and read this thread, anyway?
posted by datawrangler at 5:26 PM on May 31, 2016

I needed to have a few bowls for a Girl Scout meeting a couple months ago, and my coleader was like hey, I'll bring them, no problem,

I swear to god, the first time I read this I thought it said "my colander."
posted by scratch at 5:33 PM on May 31, 2016 [11 favorites]

Oh, and as for me, I have no fruit bowl, although I do seem to be married. What I have is a nice blue souffle dish on the kitchen counter that right now contains four bananas, a head of garlic that probably won't be there tomorrow, a nubbin of ginger I forgot to use last night, and two sweet potatoes that are on the verge of Can I Eat It.
posted by scratch at 5:36 PM on May 31, 2016

I use my fruit bowl for unripe fruit (so mostly avocados and bananas and pears) and then when they're ripe they go into the fridge.

Though, I just went down to check, and there was also a set of funnels, a grease pencil, and a ruler in it with the bananas and avocados, so that's where that ruler disappeared to.
posted by euphoria066 at 5:43 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

I am without a fruit bowl, despite being middle-aged and, therefore, presumably an adult. However, were I to have a fruit bowl, my cats would use any fruit stored therein as toys--that is, before knocking the bowl onto the floor in order to hear the loud crash. Making loud crashing noises is a lot of fun, I gather.
posted by thomas j wise at 5:58 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

my fruit bowl is populated by lemons and limes. It's purpose is to support my drinking habits
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 6:06 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

If it makes anyone feel better, none of my bowls (or dishes) match but I like them. Most are thriftstore finds that were probably meant for ice cream or mixing but who actually cares. I use bowls because if something is on the counter I will remember to eat it or cook it before it goes off.
posted by emjaybee at 6:12 PM on May 31, 2016

Mine has a sweet potato that I bought last week, and a pomegranate that has definitely been there since October. Half of a banana sits alone on the counter.
posted by bethnull at 6:14 PM on May 31, 2016

this is not my beautiful house.
posted by ennui.bz at 6:32 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

One avocado. The bananas hang above the fruit bowl, on the under-cabinet banana hook. (Or one of the banana hooks. The ghosts of banana hooks past still lurk there, too.)

Mostly, the fruit bowl is used for tomatoes, unripe fruit, and fruit that needs to be remembered and eaten that day.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 6:46 PM on May 31, 2016

What is this thing 'fruit' of which you people speak?
posted by bologna on wry at 6:51 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

That's gross. You people are gross. Fruit bowls are for fruit.

And it's important to have a nicely balanced colour palette. Which is why the supermarket stocks both red and green apples.
posted by lollusc at 8:49 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Onions, garlic, shallots. Sometimes keys, and sometimes I find a lip gloss. And right now it's covered with a pile of mail.

I don't eat fruit but I fucking love bowls. I'm pretty sure "little bowls" is usually on my Quonsmas list. I know "no fruit" is.

I love this. I didn't know this was a thing, I assumed everyone just had a bowl fruit always sitting around.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:50 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have a big glass bowl in the kitchen with apples in it, so I suppose it's a fruit bowl. I like apples and eat one every day for the doctor repelling qualities. No doctors in the house, either! It works! Avocados go in there too to ripen but there is rarely other fruit, except berries, and they get washed and put in a paper towel lined cereal bowl in the fridge. Onions live in a casserole dish on the shelf of various bowls and dishes, as do potatoes, but a separate dish because I always heard that they'll rot faster if stored together. The blue soufflé dish with 3 sprouting potatoes is currently in the front yard because I was going to plant them the other day but forgot. Random junk, of which I have an inordinate amount, goes in various baskets all over the place. And then there are the pretty living room bowls, which are various and variously filled with everything from rocks to knitting to small gods to a 3 legged plaster donkey I got from secret quonsar years ago. It had 4 legs then.
posted by mygothlaundry at 8:51 PM on May 31, 2016

Also, I really need to freshen up my RSS feed so thanks for turning me on to Standard Issue.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:57 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

6 apples, 6 pears, 12 mandarins, 1 cherry tomato, 2 persimmons, ripe to the point of almost bursting at the touch, mmm , & 1 orange.

And then there's the separate citrus fruit bowl, which contains 5 oranges, 4 lemons and half a lime. Yes, we have a separate bowl for citrus, which apparently doesn't include mandarins. No idea why.

Recently seen in the main fruit bowl: feijoas - the absolute pinnacle of fruitian evolution and the reason why we have autumn.
posted by Miss Otis' Egrets at 9:23 PM on May 31, 2016

For years I've wondered about the power of the fruit bowl to draw non-fruit items to it. Now I know it's not just our fruit bowl but all fruit bowls.
In an effort to control the non-fruit influx we set up an adjunct fruit bowl for non fruit items. It contains, predictably mostly fruit... I had no idea life would be this elaborately mysterious
posted by From Bklyn at 10:34 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was actually really confounded to see so many people putting things in their fruit bowls that weren't fruit. I mean, I can understand the concept of fruit bowl as an easier-to-access junk drawer, but not with fruit in it. How do you eat a fruit that's been rubbing up against pencils and receipts? I thought the whole point of a fruit bowl was having a pretty home accessory that was also edible - the yummy alternative to a vase of flowers. It's given me a whole new perspective on those still lifes with dead animals in them - I always thought it was an exercise in painting things with different textures. But maybe that's just how some artists kept their fruit bowls?

The world is large and contains multitudes. And AAA batteries.
posted by Mchelly at 10:54 PM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

One of the fruit bowls is mainly full of regret, in that it used to be filled with bananas, and then it was filled with pre-banana bread, and now, well, now it's full of regret. Also this stupid bowl is really more of a wire sculpture that I have lugged through two years of college and seven post-college moves across an entire country even though it's literally useless as a bowl, so now I'm realizing my entire countertop is just like a morass of despair. This is fine.
posted by jetlagaddict at 11:09 PM on May 31, 2016 [9 favorites]

I got rid of my fruit bowl (which never ever contained fruit) because: decluttering. Then not even a month later I owned a metal wire two level bowl thing. Apparently if one owns a house (married or not) it requires fruit bowls. But if I put fruit in it the fruit dies because why would I look for fruit there? It would be a random crap from my purse bowl except the design doesn't work for small items.

So my fancy housewarming fruit bowl now holds a hamster in a ball cat toy. The hamster is broken.
posted by kitten magic at 4:03 AM on June 1, 2016

I filled my fruit bowl with little multi-colored potatoes when I put my condo on the market. It sold the first day.
posted by bendy at 4:53 AM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

How do you eat a fruit that's been rubbing up against pencils and receipts? I thought the whole point of a fruit bowl was having a pretty home accessory that was also edible

Again, not a fruit eater, but isn't most fruit peeled, or at least washed? The fruit may have even rolled around on a dirty grocery store floor. Then again, I have a 98.9% "Yes, You Should Eat It" record.
posted by Room 641-A at 5:17 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's washed before it goes into the fruit bowl (so I hear), so rubbing up against pencils and receipts would seem to nullify the ablutions.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:35 AM on June 1, 2016

I wash it on its way out of the fruit bowl.
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:35 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

feijoas - the absolute pinnacle of fruitian evolution

Surely it doesn't eclipse passionfruit? I must try it next time I'm south of the equator.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:36 AM on June 1, 2016

I'm on the tail end of moving, so right now my fruit bowl is in a box and probably has a pile of random kitchen crap packed in the box on top of it (perhaps my forks? those would be nice to find). But before then it held mostly fruit (avocados are fruit, right? they don't get their own separate listing, right?), usually also a winter squash or two, and living as it did on the microwave, sometimes a microwave popcorn pack from those times when you've used the penultimate popcorn pack and want to scrap the box so there's not an entire box cluttering up your pantry shelf with only one popcorn pack in it.
posted by drlith at 5:38 AM on June 1, 2016

(Mad props to drlith for using "penultimate" correctly.)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:41 AM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

Two bananas.

A spare set of keys for my house.

A set of keys for next doors house.

Last year's council tax statement.

All the fridge magnet letters that were swearwords up until I remembered my sister was coming over with the kids.
posted by vbfg at 6:01 AM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

my entire countertop is just like a morass of despair. This is fine.

Fruit bowls on the countertop = allium-catchers, because otherwise my husband forgets that we have onions, and buys more, as the old onions slowly deteriorate in the dark box of proper onion storage. Actual fruit goes into the fruit and veg drawers in the refrigerator (called, by the 12-y.-o., "the place where good intentions go to die"), where the children forget about it, and it rots in the chill. They all resent me for reminding them of the location of the thing they're annoyed about not being able to find because it's not out in a fruit bowl, in front of their faces. This is fine.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:27 AM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

We own an Official Fruit Bowl* but it lives inside the kitchen island's cabinets and is full of oatmeal packets. The two-tier Fruit Basket** contains 2 cloves of garlic (not heads, cloves), a packet of sesame snacks from Greece, a granola bar of indeterminate origins, and one apple.

Bananas live on the sideboard in the dining room because my partner fears their ripeness is "catching" and will destroy all of our other fruits. (Namely, the single apple.)

Basically, what I'm saying is our fruit game is as sorted out as it's gonna get. I'm much more concerned about the laundry-quarters-in-old-vitamin-bottles situation, because one of these days I'm going to take my vitamins pre-coffee and swallow fifty cents.


*We are not married but my partner worked for ~10 years at a Major Fancy Home Goods Retailer, with corresponding 40% employee discount.
**ibid
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:22 AM on June 1, 2016

Another married person chiming in here in that we got three beautiful bowls for our wedding, but only one actually contains fruit. One is on the coffee table holding remotes, a computer house, and cat claw trimmers; the other has earbuds, business cards, pens, change, lip gloss, etc in it.

I look at bowls the same way I look at gorgeous pottery. I mean, it's lovely and I am glad someone makes it, but who needs all those bowls and mugs and trays? They just start to pile up after a time and you're wondering why the hell they're there.
posted by Kitteh at 8:44 AM on June 1, 2016

They all resent me for reminding them of the location of the thing they're annoyed about not being able to find because it's not out in a fruit bowl, in front of their faces. This is fine.

you should put apples in their beds while they are sleeping and then profess total innocence when they awaken covered in fruit
posted by poffin boffin at 10:29 AM on June 1, 2016 [5 favorites]

I was feeling a bit smug last night about my bowl of only apples so I looked at it fondly this morning. And... so that's what happened to the two missing pinhole paper negatives from April.
posted by mygothlaundry at 11:08 AM on June 1, 2016 [3 favorites]

I have a tiny fruit bowl on my computer desk. It contains some oversized marbles and a few weird polyhedral dice. (the d120, balanced d20, and the d4/8/12/24/60 set, if you're curious.)

It is surrounded by a collection of jars that have held weed, and are now empty, and maybe I should put those somewhere else now that they're no longer full of weed.
posted by egypturnash at 11:15 AM on June 1, 2016

Huh. I love bowls. I have several on the center island, all containing (or waiting for) actual produce.
posted by desuetude at 11:17 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

My fruit bowl is a vintage cream-coloured enamel colander with bakelite handles and it contains apples. All very good and adult, until you realise that the apples aren't etting eaten because they were the wrong kind of apples and I should never have bought them in the first place, but they were nice and small, which is good because a small apple is perfect for my muesli breakfast, and they were kind of green so I thought they would be okay, and so I bought then and the first one was okay but by the third one they were already too ripe and getting too sweet and mealy so I stopped eating them, and I should really remember that Braeburns do that, and only buy Elstar which is the only kind of apple I like because they are crispy and soursweet and aromatic, almost herbal in flavour, and now the stupid Braeburns are taking up all the space in my colander which is a fruit bowl and I can't throw them out because they aren't rotten yet and I can't buy Elstars because I still have Braeburns, don't I, and I got a honking big bag of them and they weren't cheap either and aaaargh why do I keep doing this?
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:27 AM on June 1, 2016

Make some apple sauce.
posted by zamboni at 12:54 PM on June 1, 2016

I would, if I could stand the stuff.
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:26 PM on June 1, 2016

What is a "fancy" mango and how does it differ from a regular mango? That's the main question I've got here.
posted by bracems at 1:52 PM on June 1, 2016

Shit. I've just realised that my self-satisfied list of fruitbowl fruit was conspicuously missing bananas. Which I bought yesterday and are presumably still sitting on the counter at the shop.
posted by Miss Otis' Egrets at 2:05 PM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

> What is a "fancy" mango and how does it differ from a regular mango

Tux vs sweats
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:08 PM on June 1, 2016 [3 favorites]

Perhaps it was a https://champagnemango.com/
posted by sweetmarie at 2:42 PM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

I haven't had feijoas in years despite them being my favorite fruit ever (passionfruit are probably my second favorite). I can't bring myself to pay $1.80 per feijoa at my local (Australian) supermarket. Obviously I need to organise a trip back home at the right time next year.

My fruit bowl is a Pyrex pie dish that currently had a bag of apples, a kiwifruit that needs throwing out and some others random non fruit items. It usually only houses apples and bananas because if there is other fruit in the house I will eat it all within two days. Therefore I can only have apples and bananas in the house.
posted by poxandplague at 2:55 PM on June 1, 2016

egypturnash: "I have a tiny fruit bowl on my computer desk. It contains some oversized marbles and a few weird polyhedral dice. (the d120, balanced d20, and the d4/8/12/24/60 set, if you're curious.)

It is surrounded by a collection of jars that have held weed, and are now empty, and maybe I should put those somewhere else now that they're no longer full of weed."

That d120 is notoriously inaccurate. Lou Zocchi has a video about it. Not only is it weighted to roll lower numbers, it also sometimes will jump off of the table and poke people in the eye. Or roll on the floor, then you can't find it. Then in the dark it will roll under your foot and make you fall, maybe sprain an ankle.

If you send it to me I'll make sure it's put out of its misery humanely. No charge to you, I just like helping people.
posted by Splunge at 3:10 PM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

I haven't had feijoas in years despite them being my favorite fruit ever (passionfruit are probably my second favorite). I can't bring myself to pay $1.80 per feijoa at my local (Australian) supermarket. Obviously I need to organise a trip back home at the right time next year.

I could have written that too. Sigh. I used to, well, never pay for them at all, because everyone I know had feijoa trees, but I used to see them in the supermarket for like $2 per kilo. Here in Australia, as you say, that would get you 1 fruit.
posted by lollusc at 7:08 PM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

"In late antiquity in the Mediterranean people used bowls with writing on them to protect themselves against demons. Evidently demons hate bowls. "

Where might one acquire a similar bowl? Uh ... asking for a friend. A friend with a demon problem.

I do have multiple fruit bowls, although I didn't start using one until my kids got old enough to forage for their own snacks and it became annoying. Now we keep a bowl of apples and oranges (and sometimes other sturdy hand fruit) on the counter and they can take things from the bowl without asking and it keeps them from going in the cabinets or fridge after chips or cheese or whatever.

I do think it's weird that people put not-fruit in their fruit bowl alongside the fruit. You're gonna eat that fruit! Don't get receipt paper ink on it!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:23 PM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

I keep reading feijoas as feijoada, and then imagining a somewhat-disturbing unctuous meat-fruit.
posted by desuetude at 12:46 PM on June 2, 2016