The Trouble With Grapefruit.

November 23, 2014 Munchkin

I haven’t written a meal related article for a while. Well, it is because I have been having a bit of trouble with grapefruit. Straight after the Tangerine Marathon, the grapefruits started raining down.

Well the trouble started with trying to convert to a grapefruit only diet first of all…at the time, it seemed like a good idea (well, before we actually started). Anyway, I maxed out at only four grapefruits a day because I was eating the skin and pith around the flesh and it turned out to give me digestive problems. It started off with gastritis, a bit of abdominal spasm and then bountiful flatulence. It was not very amusing…I can tell you that.

Anyway, I am not one to give up on food so then I started eating only the pulp of the grapefruit. This meant that I had to painstakingly remove skin, pith and pips and with this tedious activity, I maxed out at two grapefruits a day.

I next tried to incoporate grapefruit pulp into all our main meals. It is actually okay used as a side serving with the mean meal in place of the vegetables. It is especially good with a fatty meal as the citrus helps to cut through the grease. However, the common yellow grapefruit is not particularly photogenic and the insipid pale yellow colour really doesn’t add excitement to the overall look of a dish.

A Side Serving of Yellow Grapefruit witha Meal.

The picture is actually quite embarrassing but I assure you that the meal tasted better than it looked. This is real home cooked food which is made for the purposes of eating and not for appearances. Hence, sometimes colours are not correctly balanced but I suppose this is probably a better potrayal of real food.

Anyway, after a few days of that, the grapefruit citrus flavour was really getting on my nerves so I decided that some creativity was needed, on my part, to please the taste buds.

Well, I am of the opinion that any thing that is fried usually tastes good so I tried my hand at some grapefruit fritters. I basically mixed grapefruit pulp in flour and mixed it to a custard-like state with no water added. I added salt, pepper and chopped hot chilli peppers to the mixture. The result was okay; well, it looked okay:

However, truth be told, the grapefruit fritters tasted quite bland and you couldn’t taste much of anything. The only thing going for it was that it happened to be deep fried in oil! So, sorry, this one is not going into the recipe section.

In conclusion, we all have our share of disasters and disappointments in the kitchen. Not every meal that you eat can be a snap-shot beauty but let’s try to remember that it is the taste that matters. Meanwhile, I will persist valiantly with the grapefruit eating since they are still falling off the tree!

Belize, Farming, Food

Yummy Smelly White Cacao Fruit.

November 22, 2014 Munchkin

This is a picture of the Mayan Cacao which is called Balam in Toledo, Belize. The latin name is Theobroma bicolor; it is an unusual variety because the beans are actually white (as opposed to black/purple) and its pulp has a strong, pungent smell and taste. September to November is the usual harvest time and we are collecting them from our trees right now. They are usually ready when they fall off the tree and the fruit starts showing a yellow tinge. The fruit is esteemed by the Mayans here and they like to grind the fermented cacao beans to make a chocolate drink; in fact, they think the taste of this bean is better that the normal chocolate bean (theobroma cacao).

Toledo is hailed as a good cultivation area for cacao plantations; local farmers have been encouraged to plant normal cacao for international chocolate companies. The current feeling on this “White Cacao” amongst the chocolate-making community is that it is not a variety that imparts a taste familiar to high standard chocolate.

Well, I don’t really care about what top chocolatiers think because I like to eat and experiment with everything we have on the farm and I am not swayed by fads and fashion. Right now, we are drying and fermenting some beans out in the sun with a view to making our own home-made chocolate. I will keep you posted on what happens to our white chocolate. As an interesting aside, the pulp of the cacao has characteristic aromas similar to jack fruit (and durian) and because I like oriental smells, I think it is intensely fragrant and tasty.

Belize, Food, Plants

A Tropical Herb.

November 20, 2014 Munchkin

Today’s post is an addition to our Library:

Hamelia patens or Read Head in our Plant and Farm Related Section.

Maybe you have some growing in your garden.

Cheers.

Amusing, Belize

Meeting an “Insanely Famous” Person.

November 20, 2014 Munchkin

I have been hob-nobbing with the “insanely famous” so I have been told. I was told that this man was “majorly famous” and that he was a big celebrity, mostly in the UK, Europe and Australia. The people from the States did not know who he was. I have not followed television for many, many years so I had no idea when I was introduced to this guy without any prelude. I got the impression that he was a very down-to-earth guy with no delusions of superiority or grandeur. He just seemed like an ordinary, friendly person.

Gnome spoke Italian with him. Everybody got along very well.

Belize, Philosophy

A Bit More About Our Philosophy…

November 18, 2014 Munchkin

Human Productivity:

In Our Philosophy and About Our Products pages, we allude to the desirability of hand-made as having something “more” over machine-made, conveyor belt things. We also lauded human productivity. What does this actually mean?

Let us say that we are making a gesture to the pyramids, the castles, the cathedrals, Roman ruins, any ruins, to the hand-tool, to the mentality of lasting, to the direct human ingenuity of solving a problem. This is very romantic and ideal and sounds nice but why?

Want to know why? Read the Rest Here!

Belize, Pets

My Doggy Licks Toads.

November 17, 2014 Munchkin

My dog Beatrice, likes to lick toads and has done so for as long as I have been her owner. I would like to share some interesting observations with you which may indicate that my dog is capable of some degree of awareness and adaptive behaviour.

Beatrice, in her formative years, used to run after and maim toads like mad. At the same time, she would be slobbering all over them, licking them like mad! In turn, the toads would release chemicals which would cause her to salivate more and it would always turn into a very, very wet slobbery mess. She would bark a “playful’ bark for about half and hour, frolic about with the toad, and then she would fall asleep instantly for a couple of hours. I have not noted any long-term side effects from this dog’s activity as I am aware of this chemical being cardio-toxic. In my observation, I have noted that after these toad-licking sessions, her mood appears to be more stable as her basic personality is mad, aggressive and erratic and she can be quite a handful.

Over the years (I have never been able to stop her fascination with toads), I have noticed a moderation in her behaviour with toads. She no longer thrashes about with them in a overly boisterous way but instead, she is perfectly content to sit next to toads in a friendly “let’s hang out” sort of way.

She now sits with the toad calmly and they seem to enjoy each other’s company in the shade of the coconut trees. It is a different toad (I think) each time and I have observed that she licks them intermittently and actually pets them with her paw. Whenever I see this spectacle, I call it “Beatrice and Bufotina Hanging Out” as a play on words because the chemical which toads release is called Bufotenine. The toad does not seem scared at all and usually, after a while it politely leaves her company without any fuss; what I am saying, is that the toads do not get injured anymore! Moreover, there are just a few frolicking barks but no keeling over on the dog’s part.

In conclusion, I think that my dog is capable of surpassing normal aggressive doggy behaviour and learned how to control her recreational requirements with moderation.

If you want to know more about Cane Toads Go Here.

Belize, Farming

Hooray For Stumpy!

November 16, 2014 Munchkin

About 5 years ago, we decided to embark on a project to raise guinea pigs for food. We had read up on it and found that it was a delicacy in Peru; our reason for choosing guinea pigs was because they are docile (after having goats, the keeping of guinea pigs sounded very nice) and they also eat lots of grass and greenery without the need for bought food. Besides, we saw varoius tasty Peruvian recipes which looked very appetising; most of them looked like variations of deep-fried guinea pig with the head left on!

We started off with three guinea pigs in our breeding program which consisted of one male and two females. The male was a long-haired, dark brown type; he was very boisterous and friendly and he liked to wiggle his bottom at the other two girls whilst making ddddrrrrr overtures. We called him “The Boy”. Both girls had a patch-work of different colours and they were also long-haired. Penelope had blonde and white patches and was very friendly and liked to petted. The other girl had red and white patches and her personality was the complete opposite of the other girl. She was very shy and liked to hide in the corners of the cage; she was deadly quiet except for when I approached the cage with freshly cut sweet grass; she would call out with a shrill weeeeeee! And, as soon as I was in view, she would stop as though she had never been making any noise. I never heard a peep out of her whenever she saw that I was looking at her. Her name was Stumpy and she is the only one that remains alive out of all three.

She was aptly named Stumpy as her left rear leg unfortunately broke on the first day, when we were transporting her back home. By the time we got home, we ended up having to do an above-knee amputation (there was no choice) and then we dipped her stump in copal oil and dressed it. Her recovery was remarkable and to this very day, she is my testimony for the wonderful healing benefits of Copal Oil.

Through out the years, Stumpy bred like a champion and mothered many guinea pigs (at a guess, it has probably been about 20). The leg has never been an impediment and has continued to be a piggy with a winning personality. We call her GrandMa Stumpy now and she has her own cage because she can be a bit irritated by the other noisy guinea pigs.

She is retired now and every day we give her fresh sweet grass (Mombassa is her favourite) and even some small doggy food pellets as a treat. Because of her age, she does get a bit smelly and unkempt so every three months, we take her out of the cage to give her a haircut, trim her toe-nails and clean out her hairy ears.

I wanted to write a special article on Stumpy because she is the Grandma of our farm and she deserves a mention because she is such a sweet little creature. Hooray for Stumpy!

If you want to read a cool and entertaining article on Guinea Pigs, Click Here.

Belize, Our Products

Busy Bugs In The Bush.

November 16, 2014 Munchkin

Today I made body oils; this consisted of pasteurising coconut and avocado oil (I basically heat it up to 72C and hold it at that temperature for five minutes.

The Chocolate Body Oils are very popular down here in Toledo for the tourist market since cocoa (cacao) is a major commodity down here.

Glueing and Pasting Every Single Label. — Gluing and Pasting Every Single Label.

In keeping with our philosophy, I cut, glue and paste every single label. It is my hope that my positivity in working will infuse into the product from beginning to end.

Bottles are Packed in Plastic to Keep Away Bugs in The Tropics.

We live in a wooden house in the Tropics (in the bush…think Sean Connery in Medicine Man…yes, we do live like that!) so I have to obsessively protect my wares from the environment. One particular problem is a bug which looks like a metallic shiny green robot bug (looks exactly like StarBug from Red Dwarf, if you know what I am talking about); it hovers and buzzes around all my precious boxes looking to plant mud everywhere to build nests. You can spot him a mile away with its back legs trailing mud everywhere and it makes a continuous droning noise like an electric screw-driver. Truth be told, they are actually rather “cute” in a buggy sort of way and if you look at them, they are not menacing or predatory like the biting bugs of Belize. They just act as if they are messy little bugs that mean you no harm but like to smear mud everywhere. They have made too much of a mess of my products that as a consequence, I have had to cover all my products in plastic. I used to wrap things up in brown paper bags in boxes but these bugs seem to be attracted to anything made out of paper.

Belize, Soap

Keeping The Blog Alive.

November 14, 2014 Munchkin

I am tired today so it is going to be a short one; I was not going to write one but Gnome said that I should try to keep the Blog alive. It is like something alive which I am trying to cultivate and at some point it will assume a personality and a presence.

This morning I spent many intense hours cutting out labels, sticking them on jars and bottles and packing a lot of products.

Ribbons and Labels for Packaging Chocolate Velvet.

Gnome dipped the bottles in wax and I followed up with the ribbons and labels for the product.

The Final Product Bagged and Packaged For Sale.

We packaged soap; this involved the cutting of plastic from a roll and sealing.

More tomorrow!

Casa Mascia Apothecary