Well Fed Network

When one time finding myself yet again, awoken in a small town of France, realizing that the courtyard was encompassed by lush trees bearing perfectly petite kumquats — begging my mother to protect me from the guards, as I filled my little hands with the fragile delights.

For me, living in Africa, visiting France, and now being in South Florida, has always held a special charm, as I learned that the local produce was that of one I spent so many years eyeing lustfully in the Whole Foods produce aisles.

So today I walked in to the kitchen at my work — the local newspaper — I was intrigued by the pile of fresh star fruit that laid upon a piece of paper that read, “Please take one, two, or even three!” Admiring the generosity, I continued to the bathroom and when passing back by the kitchen, I noticed they were all gone. “Darn” I thought, as I hunkered back to my desk with a Diet Coke and frozen meal in hand. However, with my Editor out of town, I must take on quite a heavier load of duties, and with that comes much longer hours that are typically rewarded by personal satisfaction. Today, however, the anonymous “star fruit giver” was also burning the wick before deadline. And to my surprise before packing up to go into the night, a fresh batch of star fruit had magically appeared on the table. Delighting in the free food (I work for the newspaper, and with that brings difficult economic times), but also relishing in the simplicity that took me back to the days when my head would barely skim the produce aisles, but my long gangly arms always had a knack for finding the most rare and expensive — much to my parents chagrin — produce, as a child. And as that same gangly arm reached toward my star fruit that had been picked from a colleagues yard that morning, I grinned, looking nervously around me, wondering — could this really be true?

Arriving at home, tossing off my high heels, I settled in to my couch with my new prized possession, and instead of meticulously slicing thin layers, I let all reservations go, and in a completely untraditional fashion, I indulged in bites of the five triangular edges. This time relishing in the local organic qualities of a fruit I once considered a delicacy, that is now — my next-door neighbor.

Devouring my piece of art, making my keyboard more sticky with each juicy bite, I leave with these words — as always — I continue to encourage everyone to delve into your communities local ingredients.
Alice Waters puts it best in the introduction of her new book, The Art of Simple Food, when she notes, “Good cooking is no mystery. You don’t need years of culinary training, or rare and costly foodstuffs, or an encyclopedic knowledge of world cuisines. You need only your own five senses. You need good ingredients too, of course, but in order to choose and prepare them, you need to experience them fully. It’s the many dimensions of sensual experience that make cooking so satisfying. You never stop learning.”