Datelicious

Now I know nothing about dates. In fact, I hardly go on them (such a clever pun! I'll stop). So yeah, I have never been a date-lover but lately the bombardment is ON and after many dateless days I am now in the Land of Phoenix dactylifera a-plenty. Both in Jordan as well as here in the UAE I run into dates wherever I go: The trees heavy with fruit line the Corniche, gardens, the streets and the supermarkets have entire food isles dedicated to this ancient staple of the Middle East.
There are so many different dates for sale that I imagine annual date tastings where date connoisseurs are akin to wine snobs as in '..Oh, this variety has notes of honey and walnut with a tone of camel dung, etc etc". I mean, in many countries (except this one..) people make wine out of date trees (Hello, palmwine!) which would be completely up my alley but a date is a date to me and I have not developed any desire to distinguish one from the other.
That said, I have admired their growth over the last couple of months. Watching the fruits ripen, slowly changing colors and shape has been interesting and if my camera wasn't broken I would have spent endless time photographing their beauty.
I must be one of the few dateless folks here in the Middle East, one who happily hits up the giant delicious olive section in the grocery store instead. YUM.