Learn Something New Every Day

This fruit is called Canistel.  I visited 'Robert is Here', which is a fruit stand/animal park/tourist attraction on the way to and from Everglades National Park and a short ride from the golf course I played.  Robert has the most interesting array of exotic fruits and also the best fruit milkshakes EVER!  My favorite is coconut - a selection I would never normally make but my grand kids discovered it's simple perfection on their last visit.  The fresh grated shavings stick in your teeth and you get to keep enjoying even when the shake is slurped up.

After a particularly painful round of golf,  my friends took me for a shake on the way home to console me.  Not only did I have TWO two stroke penalties (hitting wrong ball, and hitting the flagstick lying on green with my putt), and did not win one hole in the skins game, my golf ball fell out of my pocket into the toilet and I had to fish it out.  My friend Sandra quickly quipped "well, at least you got it in the hole."

The highlighted milkshakes at the stand all had Canistel in them and so I bought one to try.  You eat it when it is absolutely soft to the point of rotten, and when you cut it open, it has the faint aroma of pumpkin.  Not particularly appetizing.  But the fruit has the consistency and taste of egg custard and apparently is phenomenal in shakes, custards and sorbets.  Not exactly something I would eat by itself - a few tastes were enough - but fun to discover a new fruit.  Apparently the strawberry/canistel shake is "to die for". 

There's No Place Like Home

How is it suddenly post holidays and the New Year?  Wow, the Fall flew by.  I measure time in several ways, such as: between dentist check-ups, football season, when it is time for the Masters, and how Christmas comes before I am ready for it.  Well, the Browns totally disappointed once again, but that is my normal so I just learned to enjoy my Sundays in the leather Lazy-Boy watching them fail.  And Christmas was very close behind a late Thanksgiving, however, I still managed to get the gifts bought, wrapped and sent and even made Mom's kolachi.  I did get a by from my sister on cookie baking but sadly, that means no frozen sour cream cookies in my freezer.  It is just not the same without a frozen Christmas tree to enjoy in February.  Decorations were at a minimum, but that is OK, because I headed to O-H-I-O for Christmas with family.  Which also means, since I have moved, that I have little to do but enjoy the fruits of others' labors.  I fear I am going to owe my sister and niece a lot of payback for all of their fantastic entertaining.

The view from the plane window upon approach to Hopkin's airport was foreboding, because the weather remained the usual Cleveland winter grey for the entire visit. But, if we didn't have the horrible winter weather to complain about, what, besides our faltering sports teams, would bond Clevelanders together so tightly?  Upon arriving at the airport, my first thought was, these people, even all bundled and pale in contrast to what I left, are my people! We are tied to a common denominator - we love our city and, perhaps, we love to complain about it!  Not that I would want to move back, at least from November through April, but visiting is still coming home.  Old friends, family and neighborhoods, I am attached to them forever.