Dearest Rachel –
So, while I had prepared for nothing much to happen last night – and as a consequent sidelight, begun a couple of letters to you as contingency plans – that is precisely what turned out to not happen. As a result, I have plenty to tell you about, even if much of it isn’t exactly “my” story to tell.
You see, while I was working the booth this weekend (as I do, more often than not by far, as it happens – this is the second of three such weekends in a row), there was a festival going on some ninety miles downstate, having to do with, of all things, pawpaws. Why pawpaws? Well, it seems that Kerstin’s black walnut trees don’t play nicely with most of the other things in her garden, and she wanted to find something that did; apparently, pawpaws actually do. And after doing some research on the plant, she discovered a place where she could not only get the fruit (and more to the point, seeds so she could grow her own), but where they were having an event celebrating the harvest for the year.
So she and Ellen headed down there on Saturday (Erin having already had a commitment to run for a cancer research charity), and brought back more of the fruits than they could be expected to eat themselves – especially given that they don’t keep for very long at all. Apparently, if you don’t freeze them right away, they can only last for three or four days before spoiling; not sure if they rot or ferment or whatever, but in any event, they needed help to consume them. Besides, they wanted to show off their haul from the festival to the rest of us. As a result, we managed a get-together of the whole complement of us for the first time in what always feels like longer than it’s been; certainly the first time in ages that hasn’t revolved around a restaurant trip (not that I mind those, apart from Erin constantly insisting on paying her own way).
Of course, for all that newly-gathered knowledge about the fruit (which, given its short shelf life and… let’s just say, inconsistent flavor profile and odd texture, will probably never gain widespread commercial viability), that wasn’t so much of what I was focusing on so much. Rather, it was just nice to have everybody hanging out in the kitchen swapping stories. Kerstin had trouble getting our icemaker to cooperate with her water bottle (and Ellen compared her comments about it to a ‘Scenes From a Hat’ routine – “Things you can say about your icemaker, but not your girlfriend” – that sent Erin running for the bathroom, to protect her ears. Oh, I’ve missed these days). Meanwhile, Erin had a story of her own about the outbuilding bathroom that had curtains instead of partitions between stalls, which explained to her why the girls in line in front of her were giggling so much.
That said, they did still want to share their bounty with us, in hopes that we might enjoy them as much as they did.
We couldn’t agree what it tasted like, though. While we all agreed that the mouthful was somewhat custard-like (with a few firmer bits that resembled that of a underripe banana), the flavor was more nebulous. My first helping tasted like an argument between vanilla several rooms away and banana a room or two further down the hall. Another spoonful seemed to have more pronounced notes of mango and pineapple. It’s definitely the Forrest Gump of fruits; you never know what you’re going to get.
What you are going to get is a custardy texture – which, when combined with an aroma that didn’t match its flavor, brought of the subject of durians. As it happened, we actually had some dried durian on us at the house that we hadn’t dared open until now, so the bag was pressed into service.
Honestly, the chunks of dried durian tasted like… well, Daniel said “like teriyaki chicken”, but I dislike the hoary old “tastes like chicken” cliché. I can’t argue about the teriyaki comparison, however, although the E-girls (Ellen and Erin) – neither of whom like teriyaki – didn’t seem to notice it, or be terribly bothered by it. Ellen claimed that it didn’t taste anything at all like the fresh durian a coworker of hers brought into the office at one point – which shouldn’t be surprising, as a raisin doesn’t taste much like a grape – and added that there was extra sugar added to the stuff we were passing out. Regardless of their opinions on teriyaki, though, it was a moment of “well, we’ve tried the stuff, and we’re glad we did, but that’s quite enough for now, thanks.” Not sure how or when we’ll ever get back to the rest of the bag.
We also had some discussion of a few other things Daniel and I had brought back from our various travels. Some sakura-flavored KitKats were passed around at one point, and they, like the pawpaw, seemed fairly indistinct in flavor. We didn’t break into the other bags, deciding to wait until another time – which holds out the promise of “another time” in the relatively near future, including the possibility of meeting up at a grand opening in the neighborhood some time next weekend. Which, assuming it happens (the meet-up, not the grand opening as such, as that’s bound to happen), I’ll be sure to tell you about, eventually.
The E-girls also have made a habit of using these meet-ups as an opportunity to swap books between them (which should encourage them to want to get to get together more often, rather than less, but whatever). Erin, in particular, likes children’s books, and inveigled me in the past to do a readers’ theater bit with her of several from the Elephant and Piggie series. She even suggested that we could make videos of our readings at some point, which feels almost like coming full circle from what I was planning on doing (among so many other possibilities) so many years ago. To that end, I hauled out one of my Walt Kelly books and read an excerpt, reminding her that I’d hoped to have her color some of his illustrations for just such a recorded performance.
Who knows? I may have piqued her interest, at least for the moment.
Then again, by that point in time, several of our guests (along with Logan, who was feeling it more than most of us) were starting to come down with a case of the Sunday scaries, where it’s just too late to enjoy anything, since you have to wake up for work Monday morning. We said our (gradual) goodbyes, but for all I know, the girls could have been chattering like magpies out on the driveway until eleven. They were welcome to come hours sooner than they did, but what can you do?
In any event, it was a pleasant night, and one that held the promise of more in the near future. You would have enjoyed it – and as always, I’m sorry you couldn’t have been there – it really did feel a lot like old times.
