Today I went on my first harvest! It was unexpected (for me), and pretty small. We harvested fruit from one cactus and one pomegranate tree.
It was so cool to touch a cactus and to pick and then eat its fruit! We each ate some of the pitaya fruit while we were picking it. (And who knew pitaya was a fruit before it was a store? I didn't, until today. The fruit is better.) It is sort of like a kiwi, except bright pink/red on the outside and white on the inside. I'm going to look for pictures to put up! I need to start bringing my camera everywhere.
We also harvested a pomegranate tree. I tried some pomegranate while we were harvesting, too--it's tart but good! We came away with about two boxes of pomegranates and one bag of pitayas.
After the harvest, we stopped back at the office and then headed downtown for our bimonthly Food for Thought dinner. This dinner is meant to be a time for refugees and non-refugees to spend time together sharing a meal and sharing stories. It is meant to be a cross-cultural exchange, and we try to hold it at a restaurant either owned by a refugee or that employs refugees. Tonight we went to a wonderful Mediterranean restaurant called Sinbad's. The food was so delicious, and I met many new people! And as our supervisor said, what better way to spend September 11th than seeking peace and change through building relationships with people from many different countries, cultures, and backgrounds?
Tomorrow is going to be a long day, so I'm hoping I can get a lot of rest in tonight.
Pomegranate is great to use to make a rich sauce to drizzle over pork, and makes really good jam/jelly! They're just a pain to eat, as it's very messy and a little time consuming. I haven't had an opportunity to try pitaya since I've been out here, I'm jealous!
ReplyDeleteThat is great to know! I think I am going to get to bring some pomegranates home. :) I'm also in charge of helping with food preservation workshops & finding recipes to make foods into jams & such!
ReplyDeleteI hope you can try pitaya soon! It was pretty mild flavor but good! The color is so beautiful though haha I spent a long time just looking at the peel!