[Open letters are cool. Everyone is writing them now. I tend to address mine to food. Check out my apology to hamballs here.]
Dear raspberries,
I’ll be honest. You know me – I’m not afraid of honesty.
I used to not like you.
When someone offered me raspberries, I would politely decline. No thank you. When raspberries were on a fruit platter, I would kindly pass over for the strawberries, the pineapple, the anything-but-you. I don’t want your seeds in my teeth, raspberries, I would tell you. Seeds. Gross. You’re gross.
It was this past summer I learned how … delicious you are. I learned to live with your seeds, but yet, at the same time, avoid chomping and seed-in-teeth-severe-lodging. You were my favorite fruit to mix in yogurt and oatmeal. I would grab a handful of you to snack on. I was constantly buying you at the store.
I found a new use for you this weekend. I had some of your frozen friends in my freezer. I had a bottle of clear soda left over from the confirmation party. And then Marilyn gave me this for a Christmas present –
She knows me so well. Wine and chocolate. Throw one of those mini bottles in a glass with a touch of clear soda and some of you, dear raspberries, and it is utterly delicious. You make my lame Friday night of the treadmill, laundry, and Lars and the Real Girl a little more exciting.
And for that, raspberries, I thank you. I take back anything I may have said ill of you in the past, and I profess my love for you, seeds and all. That’s what love is, right? Loving as the fruit is; faults, seeds, and all else.
Thanks for being there for me, raspberries. Thanks for not giving up on me. Because, as it turns out, you’re delightful.
there's no place like gnome. 
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