Sundays, Sundays!

Every since I was a working teenager I have appreciated Sundays and family time. Now that I have my own family, Sundays are even more precious to me. Here are the events of a recent Sunday. . .

In Asia durian is known as the king of fruits. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian We have often smelled durian, been asked if we have tried it, been encouraged to eat it, heard the accolades of it and and avoided its smells at the supermarkets. That was to be no longer!

A friend of ours, Miow Lin Yap happens to have a durian tree. In thanks for teaching her Sunday School lesson, one Sunday she brought us 2 durian! (She actually used them as visual aids in her lesson and had the whole class salivating for them.)

Finally, my wish was to come true, we were going to try durian! (I had attempted it twice before. Once the gardeners had stolen it from the backyard, the other time my maid, Xiao, threw it out.) You must understand, not only is durian the king of the fruit, but it smells like the king hasn't taken a shower for oh, a hundred years or so! The smell is so strong and so pervasive there are hotels that have signs, "No prostitutes, no durian allowed!" I'm not joking.

Mark took the durian home on his motorbike, as he didn't want the smell contaminating the car interior. Another friend, Benjamin Tan counselled me on how to open the durian, (there is a seam that you must find, and wedge open, you must also hold it with gloves or thick cloth to prevent it from hurting your hands) and how it should taste (creamy, like a custard). Apparently local durian are the best. Imported Thai durian aren't very good. Good thing for us, we had local!

So, the adventure began! We located the seam and split it open. We used a dish towel to hold it with, but ended up with hot pads. It is pokey! Once open, there are segments inside that you have to keep 'opening', kind of like secret pockets. Within each pocket are several seeds (about the size of half a golf ball) that is covered with the 'fruit'. The creamy, custard-like durian fruit.

I admit, I don't mind the smell. There are worse smells in Asia. : ) The fruit was definitely creamy. I couldn't believe how creamy it was. Pretty incredible actually. The taste was okay. Not sweet like I am used to fruit tasting though. But it was strong, and I burped up the taste of it the rest of the night. Now I can say I have tried durian. Casey liked it more than me actually!

Next we 'harvested' a comb of bananas from one of our trees. They were so cute! I've not seen such little bananas on the market. They are very sweet. Perfect for a small snack or smoothies!

We had the Elders over one Sunday for dinner. That day Elder Tai and Elder Houston visited us. Mark wanted to change the tubes on the kids' bikes so they could ride to football practice at school. (This was during summer break.) It just so happened that Elder Houston used to work at a tire shop! So, off came the tires and tubes on on went new ones. The boys in the meantime found new use for the old tubes.

Here is Elder Tai with Benjamin. Here is Jordan. Useful, eh!

Finally, the kids usually like to jump on Sundays, especially when we have new guests/people over. This Sunday we added a new twist, tubes!

Just a note: Durian are not only aromatic and pokey, they are VERY heavy. They are not picked from a tree, rather they must drop from the tree, then you know they are ready and ripe. According to Miow Lin, people die every year waiting under durian trees for the fruit to ripen!