My Thumbnails Are Sore; It Must Be a Holiday

Every holiday, for the family dinner, one of my jobs is to provide pomegranite seeds. I do it up right: I peel two pomegranites (more if one turns out to be bad), wash the seeds, let them dry, then serve them in a glass brandy snifter. The deep red seeds in a clear glass snifter look very festive.

But peeling pomegranites hurts! I've tried various techniques -- using paring knives and peeling them under water -- but eventually it comes down to prying seeds out of the pulp with your thumbnails.

And getting acidic pomegranite juice under your nails.

If it was just for me, I'd probably never peel another one. To my mind, it's like eating crawfish -- they're not worth the trouble it takes to peel them.

But it's for a holiday dinner, and there are members of my family who love pomegranite seeds.

So have a Merry Christmas. I'm going to go soak my thumbs.

NOTE: The above image is "Miley Cyrus Claus" by illustrator Daniel Adel, whose work has been published in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Esquire, and many others. He did covers for both Newsweek and Time, including the picture of the 2007 Time Man of the Year.