TROPICAL TASTE - Reminiscing about a trip to the "country"

Recently a friend of several years moved back to the mainland.  Before he left, I was reminiscing with him about the time we met in person for the first time, a few years ago when I received an e-mail from him as a member of our Internet Freecycle (*) group here on the Big Island.

He is also a foodie person and through e-mails we had been corresponding for a little while. He lived in a place about 10 or so miles south of Hilo on 6 acres of land. His e-mailed message was to let us know he had loads of avocados ready to pick and if we wanted some we could do so anytime. We made plans and the next afternoon my son Anthony and I drove over to visit his place and meet Bill in person.

I have to tell you, ... as with many places on this wonderful island, this is way off the beaten path. To get to his place you get off the main highway on to a small paved road and then get off that road on to several connecting unpaved roads for what seemed like miles and miles. He had sent us a very well marked map via e-mail, so we did not have any trouble finding him, but he had warned us to drive very s-l-o-w-l-y and I could see why. Most people living out that far must have these monster trucks with 4-wheel drive.... But our little car made it at a snail pace, without too much "shock" to its shock system by creeping along, but we made it!

Bill and his dog Buddee (two d's and e's) greeted us and gave us the grand tour. While we were walking and talking we heard this loud braying and wondered what in the heck?... At the back of the lot there is a fenced-in area and a very handsome donkey that answers to the name of Max came over to talk to us. He was a beautiful shade of tan with some darker brown markings on his legs, was very friendly and is
the beneficiary of a wonderful exotic fruit diet.

The 6 acres are fully but informally planted with several varieties of avocados, several different bananas, such as Cavendish banana and apple banana as well as a red banana plant. None of the bananas were ready to pick at that time.

We found a big assortment of citrus trees; oranges, lemons, limes, tangerines, pomelo and a Texas Pink grapefruit. There was also an almond tree, a cashew nut tree, breadfruit, lychee and rambutan.

There was a tree he called "air apple". It is not a mountain or Malay apple, though there were some of those also - this is more along the family line of the Surinam cherry in shape, though larger. Bill told us that you can bake a pie with them and most people think it tastes like apples.

We also found cherimoya, Durian, atemoya, tamarind, love apples, sapotes and goodness knows what else! We saw a very healthy, though still small passion fruit vine that was loaded with ripening fruit.

Of course there were papayas and pineapples, and also a couple of carambola trees (starfruit). He also had a soursop tree, but it had already been picked of fruit.  wonderful milkshakes can be made with soursop!

Three beautiful tall trees turned out to be cinnamon, allspice and clove. The cinnamon bark was not ready to scrape off at this time, but the leaves smell just like cinnamon and I bought home a few branches to put in our linen closet.

The clove tree was in bloom and you could see the little reddish-pink bud starting to form - when that 'bud' dries out after the tiny petals fall off, that is what turns
into the clove with which we are familiar. The allspice tree was not in bloom but the leaves were also quite aromatic.  Bill gave us some allspice keiki (baby plants) which we have still in pots to this day.

We returned home with a haul of four different varieties of avocados. Hass, which we are all familiar with; Zutano, which has a light greenish-yellow smooth skin and the shape is sort of elongated (not really as much of a pear shaped as others). Also a medium roundish avocado that turns black when ready to eat which Bill thought was the Reed, and another small roundish with a tiny little round seed, which he thought, are called Pinkerton. These last ones we tasted with a sprinkling of lime juice that very evening, as some were ready. Lovely, creamy buttery taste!

Bill also gave us some Key Limes and several huge Meyer lemons. We came back with several seedlings of cashew trees that Anthony planted in a pot as soon as we got home. We picked a few cashews off the ground, some already sprouting a little bit and also planted those. Unfortunately, the cashews withered and died.  We are not sure if they were exposed to just too much rain too soon.

We enjoyed the drive and our afternoon visit with Bill and learning about several fruit trees with which we were not familiar.

Avocado Spread Bruschetta
This is the first thing I made with some of the avos we got from Bill... We also made salsa, an avocado dessert, a cold avocado bisque and I can't remember what else...unfortunately, this was before I became a Gather Food Correspondent and did not take photos of the different things I made to share with anyone.  When I make it again, next avocado season, I will try to remember.

1 -2 avocados, depends on size
1 8-ounce package softened cream cheese
Lime juice to taste
Fresh ground pepper, to taste
2 baguettes of French or Italian bread - sliced at an angle about 1/2" thick and toasted.

Mash avocado and mix with softened cream cheese. Add lime juice and
sprinkle with fresh ground peppercorn - I used a multi-colored
peppercorn mix (malabar, tellichery, white muntok, green and pink),
but any will do. Mix well and spread over toasted baguette slices to
serve.

If you top it with a ripe grape tomato cut in half with the cut sides facing up and a couple of small basil leaves, it looks very festive.

(*) Freecycle is an almost six-year-old, international grassroots movement that started in Tulsa, via the Internet where participants post and give away no longer needed items for free. If interested in saving our landfills from filling up with items that can still have a second and third life, please visit and join your nearest Freecycle group by typing the following on your computer browser: www.freecycle.org when the main page opens, type in your state name to find a group near you.

Mother Earth will appreciate it!

		Sonia Martinez, Gather Food Correspondent
	Sonia's column, 'Tropical Taste' is a regular twice-monthly feature of Gather Essentials: Food. Sonia is a cookbook author and freelance food writer for several publications in Hawaii, and is also a Hawaii Island Journal restaurant reviewer in partnership with her son Anthony Mathis.  She lives in a beautiful rural rainforest area on the Big Island of Hawaii. You can keep up with Sonia's adventures and ongoing love affair with Hawaii by joining her network, or visiting her food & garden blog at Sonia Tastes Hawaii.