Photo Tutorial: How to Cut up a Pineapple

I love pineapple.  You might have picked up on that if you've been following me on Facebook at all.  But the thing is, I don't always love pineapple.  Usually I can take it or leave and generally I choose to leave it.  So I should amend what I said...

This baby (in my tummy) loves pineapple.  These days I eat it daily, about a pineapple a day, in fact.

Today I wanted to pass on what I've learned about choosing a good pineapple and how to cut it up.  Those little suckers can be intimidating with all their prickly parts.  But never fear, after today you'll be a confident pineapple eater.

LESSON 1: Picking a yummy pineapple

A ripe pineapple is sweet and hardly tart.  The trick is, you gotta smell the stem (right where the top meets the fruit), and then smell the...butt.  It should smell like yummy pineapple.  What I mean is, when it's in your cart as you walk around the store, you should keep thinking something along the lines of, "Yum, something smells like pineapple.  Oh yeah, that's my pineapple."

A few days ago at Costco I could smell the pineapples a few feet away.  Yesterday at Target I couldn't smell them at all.  The produce guy tried to tell me that they were ripe - that I should pay attention to color, not the smell.  Oh, no no no, silly man.  Fortunately, he asked another produce guy who agreed with me about the smell thing, and who promptly went to the back and found me a nice, ripe, smelly one.  (Yeah, I know that doesn't sound good, but with pineapple I promise it is.)

LESSON 2: How to Cut up a Pineapple

1.  Twist off the stem.
(You could cut this.  I don't know why, but I get a lot of joy out of twisting off the stem.)

2. Cut off the top and bottom of the pineapple fruit.

3.  Cut the pineapple in half, lengthwise.

4.  Cut it again, into quarters, lengthwise.

5. Cut out the core from each quarter.

6. Cut off the skin from each quarter.

7. Cut out each "divot" with the end of a potato peeler.

8.  Slice each quarter into 3 pieces, lengthwise, and then chop.

And there you have it - beautiful, ready to eat pineapple!  I keep it in the fridge and grab a few bites of it here and there throughout the day.

Enjoy the summer's bounty!

Oh, and after about five minutes of detailed, careful research, it seems that the best price on pineapple this week is Walmart, for $2.50.  But don't forget, a pineapple isn't worth any price if it isn't ripe, so make sure you smell that sucker!