Breakfast at Fanny's - Go Lightly with Grapefruit

Fanny continues her exploration of citrus fruits with a light, yet sophisticated of course, breakfast idea - perfect for those virtuous days of the early New Year. She unveils her Pamplemousses Chauds, or Hot Baked Grapefruit, to try and encourage our increased intake of Vitamin C in a wonderful way. Fanny recommends using Pink Grapefuits whenever possible - not only because they are 'superb' (and who would need any other reason?) but because she is hacked off that they have gone AWOL because the British public simply do not 'fancy' the idea of 'pink' ones. So, superb and snubbed by the British public is clearly ideal. I go pink.

Fanny wants to play a game - she bets that she can name more varieties of citrus fruit than we can. We are told to grab a pencil and write down as many as we know, and of course compare the list to her exhaustive one. Fanny wins. Every time. Fanny tells me the original Grapefruit was known as the Shaddock (and she strangely DOESN'T make any jokes about it...) which, within the 'trade' (I think she means restaurants perhaps, unless there is a black market for citrus?) as a Pomelo and is only obtainable in India. Handy. The 'pink' Red Blush Grapefruit she recommends has been developed in Texas and also South Africa, so it must be superb after all. Fanny has one plea, when choosing a grapefruit she wants us to be 'professional' buyers and not amateurs, and to do as the experts do and go for the ones with little brown blemishes on the skin, and never the all-over clear, yellow-skinned ones. The blemishes are the hall mark of top flavour and full fleshed juiciness! Phew, mine has brown blemishes...

So, confident that I have chosen well (as a professional might) I set to work, with Fanny's guidance, baking my grapefruit. It's a little more involved than I expected. Slice the grapefruit in half, and loosen all the sections from the skin with a grapefruit knife. Oh hang, I don't know what a grapefruit knife is, and clearly don't have one. Is this a good time to admit that I have never even liked grapefruit? Undeterred, I leave the halves upside down for 30 minutes to 'drain' before setting them right way up on a baking sheet and dotting them with pieces of brown sugar and flakes of butter. Then, simply bake uncovered for 30 minutes. Fanny notes that the grapefruit will have swollen during baking and will appear much larger than when raw. They do, and they actually look quite beautiful. Fanny suggests a simple garnish of glacé cherries and some orange leaves, which I just happen to have lurking in my fruit bowl. The Pamplemousses Chaud taste better than I expected, but I'm not sure I will continue to be quite this virtuous at breakfast. Fanny suggests adding a spoonful of dry Sherry or Madeira before baking if I fancy a more elegant evening starter course, which sounds much more like it...