At the urging of Miss Sparks I am staying awake later than intended to post my first blog entry (little does she know, she’ll be the one suffering a cranky Kelly in the morning). I will keep it short and tell the tale of our first week here from the perspective of the palate. My palate, that is. Listed here is a sampling of some of the delicious things that have peaked the ever-eager interest of my taste buds…
1. A Green Smoothie by Troy: Yes, it is green. Yes, it looks like banana mush. Indeed, it is banana mush with a few other fruits and some leafy greens blended in. Troy eats pretty much only bananas and mangos as a rule so a green smoothie is quite the treat and on these special occasions he is generous enough to make extra for the table. Here is a recipe for the one we ate this morning:
1 Dragonfruit
1 Rose apple
6 or 7 Bananas
A bunch of Maringa leaves
Stick in a blender and enjoy the nine amino acids you’re slurping up from that oh-so-nutritious maringa (Some may remember from my blog for my adventures in the Bahamas, that I fed maringa to the goats I cared for. Two years later I’m plucking the stuff off the tree and munching on it myself outside a temple atop an island hill in Thailand).
2. Jamaican cherries: Spherical fruits the size of your thumbnail that explode into a flavorful burst nearly identical to that of Captain Crunch Berry. Delicious, sweet simplicity.
3. Mangosteen: The Mangosteen has earned the title of “Queen of Fruits.” Taken from an entry on Xango: “Legend has it that Queen Victoria offered knighthood to any subject who could bring her a mangosteen fruit in prime condition. No one succeeded. ..” Basically it was too hot and too far and they didn’t have coolers, so no one became a knight. Sad. I just asked my fellow PDCers what words they would use to describe the mangosteen. The conversation proceeded as follows:
Ko: Maybe sweet?
T: Fruity.
Ko: Juicy.
Me: I think those words pretty much cover the definition of a fruit.
T: Tangy.
Ko: It’s light sweet, not heavy sweet. Maybe sweet sweet?
Sam: It’s like a cloud in your mouth.
R: It’s sacrilege to even try to describe it. It’s beyond words.
There you have it. You’ll just have to come to Southeast Asia and taste it yourself.
4. Sapodilla: Frankly if I were the Queen of England I would demand that my subjects bring me sapodilla in exchange for their knighthood. It is far superior to mangosteen in its rich bountiful sweetness. Envision brown sugar packaged into satisfyingly peelable, juicy sections. I picked these with my family in the Bahamas where the sapodilla trees grow along the roadside. The potently sweet sap of the tree squirted into my eye as I plucked one stubborn fruit from the tree’s winding branches. I was blind in my left eye for a couple of hours.
Completely worth it.
5. Rice pudding for breakfast: Cook brown rice. Separately warm coconut milk, cinnamon, sugar and agave. Mix ‘em up. Wow.
6. Warmed coconut milk delight: The most delicious, delightful, mouthwatering thing that I have consumed this week does not have a name as far as I can tell so I will simply call it “warmed coconut milk delight.” We have had the pleasure of eating this during three of our afternoon tea breaks. Here’s how this works. Warm coconut milk and stir in a sweetener as it warms. Try sugar or agave. Pour coconut milk in small serving bowls. Now add in the ingredient of your choice. On Tuesday vibrant orange pieces of pumpkin floated in the sweet milk. Two days later- a rich blue cluster of tapioca balls speckled with kernels of yellow corn. The next day- both! Orange pumpkin, tapioca balls dyed blue from the flowers of the Butterfly Pea, and yellow corn. Indescribably wonderous. I could eat this every day and be a very merry Kelly.
To conclude: Thank you, sub-tropical climate, for your rich bounty of sweetness!
Now please send your mosquito citizens on an extended vacation to some other country so I do not contract Japanese Encephalitis.
Pack light, travel far, excite your taste buds-Kelly
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