It’s a bit like in a British pub when they say “last orders” for the last round before it closes. These are my last lot of pictures from the farm before the new year.
Toasted bread from Gnome’s charcoal stove:
Grilled Bread.
Akee are in season right now:
Akee Fruit.Cleaned Plate of Akee.
When you saute sliced akee, they look like scrambled eggs. Try an alternative breakfast with akee and toast!!
Scrambled Akee and Toast.
Look at these bunch of naughty, thieving blighters!! Eating us out of farm and home…
Thieving Aracari.More Aracari.Aracari.
They are rather cute though so we are not going to war with them…
I thought I might share this interesting concept with you. Gnome had planted a “Kapok” tree right at our gate, when we first moved in, just as a marker. So we wouldn’t get lost??!! It is known for its seed pods which produce a cotton-like material which can be used to stuff pillows, mattresses and the like. Moreover, the material can be woven to make fibre. It sounded like a useful tree to have around. The tree was a fast grower and in about three years, it was really, really tall…sorry for not being very technical but it just appeared to stretch right up into the sky. Because it was so tall, it was definitely not hard to miss (we always found our gate…Ha-Ha) and so it was always one of the first things that Belizeans commented upon if they chanced upon seeing us at the farm.
We were then told that this tree was known locally as a “Ceiba” tree. That makes sense since the latin name is Ceiba petandra. Further enquiries reveal that this tree is actually sacred to the Mayas. It is known as a World Tree which embodies the four cardinal directions. According to Mayan Mythology, this tree also connects the centre of the earth to the sky; it is the gateway between these two worlds. This is indeed an esoteric concept that appeals to our imagination especially when it is planted right at the Gateway to our Farm.
Ceiba Tree.
Our Gateway:
The Gate.
It really does look quite magnificent in real life, like something out of a fairy tale. Every morning, we watch the toucans on the tree making their funny ribbbitting noise.
I’ve been banned from doing any real work today (using heavy machinery to clear brush) since I’ve been afflicted with horrible sinus headaches and a substantial load of snot and mucus (probably from smoking too many cigars…naughty, naughty!). I’ve tried to cooperate with my doctor’s prescription but being an obsessive compulsive git makes this sort of thing difficult…
Anyway, the results of my “light duties” include the following:
I finally managed to take a couple of shots of one of the toucans that come every morning around 0530-0600 and hang about on our Cotton Tree (Ceiba Tree) while we have our morning hot beverage. Check it out, I actually succeeded in taking not one but yes, two reasonable photographs!!
Toucan on the Ceiba Tree.See, I can take photographs!! Two in less than a minute. Eat your heart out!!
Getting excited about miso, koji and fermentation again. With the help of Munchkin, we took out our three jars of experimental miso and bucket of soy sauce for a quick look-see:
This is what real (commercial) miso looks like.This is our miso.
You can see that our miso needs another six months at least before getting that smooth even texture. Our miso was made with rice koji and the ubiquitous Belizean Red Kidney Bean. It is still young but has a lovely floral, fruitiness that imparts a wonderful umami-ness to food.
The next jar we tried was our Chocolate miso: Rice koji and cacao nibs. Definitely needs another year to do its thing. We’re hoping it will turn out like a vintage hacho miso.
Chocolate Nib Miso.
Noni miso is the next lot. I have to say this technically didn’t start off to be miso. It was an attempt to use rice koji to “malt” some rice to then ferment into a rice wine/beer; I didn’t like the way it was going though so, I mixed it all up with some noni fruit and seeds instead. Again, this would benefit from at least another year. Great umami-ness in this one as well that marries very well with the noni-ness. I predict that it will be a favourite.
Noni Miso.
Finally, the soy sauce…which doesn’t have any soy beans in it but rather black beans, fully fermented craboo (you can tell we are becoming Belizean), peach palm fruit and balam (and the necessary koji, of course). Yup, you guessed, needs another year and more frequent stirring. Came up with the idea to use a paint stirrer to really get everything agitated:
Paint stirrer to mix up the soy sauce.
And here is the bucket:
Non-soy sauce after paint stirring accomplished. You can see the orange bits of craboo and balam in it.
We really need that Mallard reaction (no ducks are to be harmed in the process, I promise!!) to start happening in order to be taken seriously as a real non-soy sauce.
Oh yes, I also wrote a post after a long hiatus from the keyboard.
Anybody out there want a photograph of what is coming out of my sinuses?!?!?Munchkin not happy with that last statement.
