Veggies & Fruits...We're definitely not in KS anymore

As much as we enjoy the things that are different about living in Bangkok, it is also nice to find little pieces of familiarity. One great discovery that I made during the second week of Luke attending his new school was a CSA (Community Supported/Sustained Agriculture) that distributes organic, locally grown produce from small farms to families in the community on a weekly basis. We participate in one of these in Kansas and Luke enjoys going with me at home to pick up our veggies for the week. I’m not sure why I was surprised that this is available here because we certainly have a much better selection of fruits and vegetables available to us when we’re here.

Our CSA in Kansas has each family go through and select from the weekly offerings and pack your own bag of veggies. Here we get a weekly “Munching Box”, literally a cardboard box, full of vegetables and fruit that includes fruits and/or veggies in an array of 5 different colors. Needless to say, the weekly spread looks quite a bit different from our “norm” at home. Take a look at what we got the first week:

This picture includes (clockwise from top-left) bananas, lettuces, carrots, spinach, chinese kale, pineapple, chayote squash, tomatoes, and passionfruit. Sure enough, we've got yellow, green, orange, red and purple represented here. Impressive, huh?

This is causing me to be both resourceful and creative in the kitchen since 1) our kitchen apartment is exactly one standard deviation above a camp stove and 2) I have no idea how to eat/prepare some of things that we get. What an adventure! I had never seen or heard of chayote squash. Had to look that one up on the internet. It can be cooked in both savory and sweet recipes and we ended up stir frying ours with some other veggies. It is along the lines of a zuchini (more firm though) but a little sweeter tastes.

On our last long trip to Thailand in 2009 I had my first encounter with a real, live passionfruit. I had tasted various juice or other processed foods that claimed to have passionfruit in them but had no idea how a fresh one looked or tasted. During a stay at a really nice hotel, I had the chance to try one on the breakfast buffet. AMAZING flavor! So when the fresh passionfruit arrived in the first and second week’s Munching Box I was pretty excited. The outside of the fruit is firm and has color ranging from green to a deep purple.  When you cut the fruit in half you can see that the skin is thick and spongy and the pulp is bright yellow-orange with little black seeds (see below). The best ones are really full in the middle and you can feel that when you pick them up prior to cutting them open. The taste is both sweet and really tart (MY favorite). Here are some pictures of the kids giving it a try.

 After telling Dr. Montri (the doctor at work) about my passion for passionfruit, he arrived on a Friday with an ENTIRE BAG for us! He also had a container of salt and a container of brown sugar and gave explicit instructions about how to clean and eat the fruit for the best taste. We spent the better part of that Saturday morning washing the outside of the fruit in salt, cutting them open and putting a little bit of brown sugar in the fruit to dissolve. Then you can use a spoon to loosen the pulp and drink it right out of the "shell". FANTASTIC! We’re all fans now.

It is particularly fun to watch Luke and Lexi try these different tastes. I'm so intrigued to see how these food experiences shape them as they get older. Luke has always been fairly adventurous for his age when it comes to food so I imagine that will continue. He certainly being exposed to a wider variety of foods than most of his friends at home.