"True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing."

I think it was Socrates who said that one.  Or maybe it was the fake Socrates from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.  In any event, the first step in solving any problem is to acknowledge your own limitations.

A friend of mine out on the Left Coast has a pomegranate tree in her yard.  I've been fortunate enough to sample the homemade jelly that she makes from the pomegranate juice.  (And by 'I', I mean mainly 'my little brother.'  But I've also had some and we both think it's pretty good stuff.)  I once made a joke about how I harvested some pomegranates of my own, meaning of course that I bought a package at the local supermarket.  I was told at the time that the commercial variety produced by Pom Wonderful™ and such were far less juicy and tasty than the ones from my friend's backyard.

So eventually it was time for my friend to prove her point.  I received a package in the mail this morning, containing the four largest pomegranates that I've ever seen.  This is not to imply that I've seen a huge number, but these four were certainly the largest.

I set three on the countertop in my kitchen and cut into the fourth one.

Yep.  Pretty freaking juicy.  And now we return to the basis of tonight's post.  What do I do next?  Ummm.  Yeah, it turns out that I don't know shit about eating pomegranates.  By extension then, neither does my brother.  We looked at the vast number of arils to be separated from the rinds and scratched our heads for a moment.  What do we do next?

Since we're both perfectly willing to acknowledge those times when we know nothing, we did what anyone in the year 2011 would do.  We went to the internet.  The internet instructions made it sound a little easier than it actually was, but we managed to get the damned thing done eventually.

Now is the point in the post where we actually have some knowledge to share.  Those little suckers are indeed more juicy and tasty than the ones I bought at the store last year.  There's something to be said for labor cost though.  Oy.  That's some work.  I can't even imagine taking the time to process a bunch of those things.  One at a time I can do.

Long story short though - now I know something that I didn't know yesterday.  And that has to count for something.