How to Eat a Pomegranate

Pomegranate season begins. My favorite. Pomegranates are tart, sticky, sweet, crunchy, and just filled with yumminess. I first tasted them last year, and this year I'm hoping to learn to cook with them maybe, or add them to salads at least (they might be a good substitute for cranberries in my Crannberry Quinoa Salad).
But, my first pomegranate of the season is simply going to be eaten. And shared with all of you, of course. This post is a tutorial: How to Eat a Pomegranate.
Of course, you can just cut one in half and rip these seeds out, spilling juice everywhere and sacrificing seeds ... but in my opinion, pomegranates are just too good to waste even a single seed. Plus, I always hated it when I had slices of orange, rather than the natural segments ... I feel the same way about pomegranates.

This is the pomegranate I bought. It's on the stove because there's strong light there, for my pictures.
Get two bowls: one for the fruit (seeds), and one for the flesh (the skin, the pith). Cut four (or three or five, but I'm drawn to four, even though pomegranates are slightly pentagonal in shape) slits in the center, starting from the crown. Don't make them very deep. Cut out the crown, but again, be careful. Leave white pith showing.
Peel the skin away from the fruit. You will get juice on your hands (because seeds will be cut or will burst under the pressure of your fingertips, no matter how careful you are), and it's sticky. Lick it off, it's yummy.
Pith will stick to the seeds. Pull it off, it's not as yummy.
As you peel, seeds will come off in your hands, place them in the seed collecting bowl (or you can eat the whole thing as you go, but I like to save them all up, and then have a bowl of yummy fruit to eat without interruption). Place the peels and other pieces in the other bowl.

Sorry for the darkness of the picture ... it was a hard shot to get, with me using both my hands to pull apart this goddess of yummy yumminess.
Grab hold of the pith; do your best to always exert pressure on the pith and skin, rather than on the seeds. Aside from the aforementioned "seed loss", if a seed explodes in your face, the juice will sting your eyes.
Rip it in half. It's a delicate process, but it's also fun, because you can't be too delicate with it, if you want the fruit to pull apart.
If there are any seeds that are less vibrant or squishier than the others, throw those in the discard bowl; they're not as yummy.
Tear the fruit into small segments and sort of brush the seeds off the membrane walls. Some will need more force, but mostly be gentle with your fruit, or it will bruise or burst.
Keep going until you have a bowl of yummy fruit!
Now, sit down with something yummy to drink (like tea or wine), a book (I'm reading shine, coconut moon, by Neesha Meminger) or a movie, and enjoy yourself with a delicious snack. Doesn't it look amazing and yummy?