Posts we like
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An estimated 70% of all antibiotics in the U.S. are fed to pigs, poultry and cattle merely to promote growth and compensate for the unsanitary and...
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. . . when the Invisible Glass Company of America cleared its last patent, nothingness—non-existence—suddenly became a piece of merchandise....
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This is not a train
Flavor Memories and Jakfruit
Three and a half years ago, my friend, Patricia , and I decided to go to Uganda to visit our friend Erin who was in the Peace Corps working in Eastern Uganda. In a ten day whirlwind trip, we traveled from the Eastern border to the Western border, we saw the source of the Nile River, and we even stood on the Equator. I was so happy to see Erin, one of my dearest friends from high school, who was in the middle of a three year stay in East Africa. She introduced Patricia and I to members of her community, to foods and customs unique to her region. Traveling to a place that is new and different from where you call home is visceral - smells, sounds, touch, tastes all become more vivid and heightened while you experience them. Some smells and tastes we wanted to forget - like diesel fumes (most vehicles there run on it). But one taste that for the past three and half years I could not forget and didn’t want to forget was that of the jakfruit. Erin suggested we buy some pre-cut jakfruit from a grocers in the capital of Kampala. I had never tasted a fruit that basically tasted like every delicious candy I had ever eaten. A combination of peach, banana, watermelon Starburstingly delicious. Patricia and I returned to NYC where we lived and any time someone asked me about my trip to Uganda I talked about jakfruit. Other than my friends who are Jamaican, who ate jakfruit growing up in Jamaica where it grows, no one I knew had ever even heard of the fruit, which is actually the world largest tree growing fruit and grows in parts of the Caribbean, Asia, South America, and Africa. I found it available in cans at a Vietnamese store, but I was hesitant to delve into a canned version of it. I didn’t want to ruin my flavor memory.
Now living in Miami, which has a climate that combines all the regions in which jakfruit grows, I was beyond excited to find out that jakfruit was not only available but that we could get enough to make sorbet. We were able to get over 80lbs of jakfruit from Three Sisters Farm http://www.homegrowngreens.com/ in Homestead, FL. I was slightly intimidated - the first of the four jakfruits I needed to break down weighed about 35lbs. I had been warned of sticky sap that will only come off with oil. The exterior of the fruit was sharp and spiny like a reptile. And the fruit was gigantic! Convincing myself I was a master fruit butcher, I finally cut into it. Once I was able to figure out how the jakfruit is structured - a large spine-like core surrounded by pockets of fruit, I started systematically pulling out the yellow pods of fruit and extracting the brown edible seeds (they can be boiled or baked). I made my way through the breaking down process of the four jakfruit, and save for some annoying stinging sap that I been warned about, the delicious fruit taste filled me with fond memories of my travels, conversations, and laughs, and with excitement about making a jakfruit sorbet!
FIU South Campus Farmers Market
Every Wednesday from 12-3 behind the library
Real Sorbet, Paper Books, Summer Rolls, Organic Produce, Indonesian Fare, Organic Baked Goods, and much much much more (:
Our friend Muriel
As artisans who beleive in using only produce that was grown the right way, Part 2 of Muriel Olivare’s Sustainable Farming Series at Lesters’ was an affirmation. We have four clay pots for herbs on our balcony that we gingerly coax and care for, but, as we live in an apartment, that’s as much as we can grow in our home.
One of our favorite parts of getting produce directly from farmers is having the opportunity to see the growers in their realm with their beloved crops; there is a kinetic and beautiful relationship that exists between the two. Like parents, they talk about the personalities of each plant and how open or resistant they are to their nurturing. It is as inspiring as it is informative to hear growers talk with such care and affection for their produce.
Muriel’s lecture took our schooling to the next level. From pest management, to watering systems, to creating microclimates within each plant bed, her talk revealed just how much planning, labor, and raw knowledge is necessary to grow organically in our unique region of South Florida. To round off the fascinating talk, she debuted an awesome logo tote for The Little River Market Garden CSA http://www.littlerivercsa.com/, and there was a beautiful sampling of seedlings that go on sale on a larger scale next Sunday 10/16!
Scoopin (and not scoopin) at Fairchild Tropical Garden
Wow, this place has to be seen to be believed. For those of you who have been there, I know you know and I’m preaching choir, but everyone else, you got to go go go and check this place out. Its free every Sunday in August, and we will tentatively be heading back in September for a Butterfly festival. Here are some pictures I hastily snapped up with my iphone as I was wandering around.
Here is a video our dear friend Greg Stefano shot about a month ago when he was down here visiting. Our dear friend Shannon Lin did the editing. Check out our Sorbet process from the farm to the tub!
Ancient Asian Amazin
Lychees have been being cultivated for over 4000 years (record of the first lychees was in China in 2000 BC), but we hadn’t had a non-canned lychee until we moved down here to South Florida. Now that they are in season (Lychee season in South Florida ranges from mid-June to July), we have been eating them every chance we get. Scavenging for all different kinds, we’ve found every new fresh lychee tasted better than the next. But the absolute best we have tasted here in South Florida are from Siggi’s Organic Farm and Apiary in Horse Country. Siggi (a nickname from the navy) bought his piece of property in the 1970s, and he has been doing pure organic farming here ever since. Between the bees and the worm soup, he’s got everything he needs to grow some unbelievably beautiful looking and tasting fruit.
His lychee trees are sixty years old, and have grown to about forty-five feet tall. We’re not sure if its their age, Siggi’s scrupulous practices and tender care, or something else altogether, but his lychees taste and look crazy! We have seen pink and rosey lychees, but most of the ones we’ve seen are brown. As you can see, Siggi’s are bright red, like the color of a scarlet tanager. And the taste, what?! They are not nearly as sweet (although still very pleasantly sweet) as some of the others we have sampled, but they are tangier and more complex. They burst out of their skins and make your mouth quiver with complexity. The rich nectar sweetness is still there, with the almost warm taste of pear, but there is other stuff going on. You get hints of peach, grapefruit, and all things indescribably delicious. It almost tasted like a good Riesling, but maybe we’re lycheenutz! Siggi’s farm also has some Irwin mangoes that are bright purple and almost ready, we might have to tackle those next!
