Oh fine: you ask, I deliver. Miracle Fruit here we go.

I got the email in the afternoon the day before. "Impromptu Sunset Rooftop Miracle Fruit Tasting Party: Friday," it said. "I have only 40 fruits and they are uber-perishable, so only the first 40 or so people that reply to this will get to come."

Ya'll have probably all read the article by now, which does a pretty thorough job explaining the event, so I won't get into the specifics. Let's just cut to where DL and I made it to the LIC rooftop about an hour after the party had gotten underway, and handed over our ten bucks to "Supreme" for one each of the bright red berries. I admit, there was a moment of doubt as I looked at it, sitting so innocently in my palm. I mean, don't they warn you that the red things are poisonous?

Oh well. I popped it in my mouth anyway. It tasted like a tart grape, and was mostly pit; we had to scrape off the firmly clinging pulp with our teeth. After about a minute, we spat out the seed and skin and then got down to business: experiencing the fruit. Here's a run-down of the stuff we tried, and the effects:

Lemons, limes, grapefruit, kiwis, strawberries: Awesomely sweet.
Brooklyn Brown Ale: Sweet beer!
Mango: Just okay, but I think the mango might have been underripe to begin with, so now instead of hard and sour it was merely palatable.
Pumpernickel bread: Flat tasting but otherwise unchanged.
Watermelon pickle: Since I had made them too sour to begin with, they actually became closer to what I had been going for.
Tangerines: Like Tang, or Sunkist orange soda...too sweet.
Gherkins: Weirdly unchanged.
Some kind of semi-firm cow's milk cheese, with rind: Not delicious. I don't know why, it tasted just sort of...wrong.
Goat cheese: mellowed out and tasty, but not that different (was the berry wearing off?)
Marinated goat cheese: Frikkin' delicious, but I'm not sure if that was from the berry or because it was just darn good.
Oatmeal stout: About the same, but I think the fruit was wearing off.
Kumquat: I think this would have been amazing, but I tried it at the point where the berry had definitely lost its magic, so basically my entire face puckered up in shock instead.

Yup, game over. Nonetheless we hung out for a little while longer, watching other people's reactions and enjoying being out on the roof.

Before DL and I left we spent some time chatting with Curtis Mozie, miracle fruit grower (in highly appropriate red, on the left). At one point, in the middle of listing the different things we could try under influence of the berry, he stated that if either of us had a boyfriend, we would be eating the fruit "every day." And then he laughed joyously and didn't explain any further. Now, I have my own theories on what he meant by that, but perhaps you dear readers can share your ideas? Surely he didn't mean....

Right.

We later suprised our friend LT at his birthday dinner with one of the berries, and though it didn't kick in immediately after he spat out the seed, after about a minute more it worked for him too. He sampled black vinegar (sweet); vodka, as recommended by Curtis (no different); and the lemons and limes we snagged for him ("like candy" he declared). Unfortunately, by then there was only the one berry, and the rest of us could only watch on in envy as his taste buds experienced the miracles of miraculin. I'd say this fruit is definitely one to experience with a bunch of other people. All the more reason to throw another party, hey?