The young woman at Whole Foods was moving her hands from one pineapple to another, plucking a leaf off the top of each.
"Is that how you tell if it's ripe?" I asked her.
"Yes," she said. "If the leaf comes off easily, it means the pineapple is ripe. If the leaf is falling off, it's too ripe." I'd noticed she was tugging to get these leaves off. "These aren't ripe yet," she said.
"I'm from the South Pacific," she explained. "Tonga. We're making a special Tongan drink at home today."
