Jackfruit

Despite having no idea what it is, many of us ordered dishes containing jackfuit last night at Waroeng. Wikipedia has a picture and a description, but it really didn't answer all my questions.

More fun, and more disturbing, is the related link at the bottom of the entry, where we get this picture:

The caption reads, "A moderately sized jackfruit; the largest tree-borne fruit."

I also like these appealing quotes from proscitech:

Jackfruit fondness grows with familiarity. The smell of a fully ripe fruit in an enclosed space may at first be unpleasant to some although the experience cannot be compared to the durian.

Before cutting the fruit, it is important to guard against the sticky latex. Immature fruit have more latex, so work near a sink and coat the knife, hands and the centre of the cutting board with vegetable oil.

It leads me to wonder, what is a durian?

SHAZOOM!!!

Solids reporting in. All Right!

Black Sunday Croquet - Drinks

To accompany the amazing meal cooked by Moxie, we had a couple of beverages. It is just as hard to serve a decent wine at a meal when some of the members do not drink and others only drink white and others only drink red, and others do not drink blushes. Just another eating disability as far as I am concerned.

First let me say that you can drink a white wine with red meat. In fact let me say that a good reisling goes really well as this night proved.

Bottle 1.
We started with a 2004 Vignoles from the Knapp winery in the Cayuga Lake area of New York. This is a bottle Moxie and I picked up while traveling the wineries of the region. This is a great white. I am not a big white guy, but I can appreciate it in the right season. This wine claims to be a semi-sweet but I thought it was sweet. The wine itself was a light yellow in color, maybe a little toward the greener side of the spectrum but very clear. Spinning the wine let out a bouquet of mostly apples with some berries and a little honey.

Bottle 2.
The second bottle was a 2004 riesling from Germany. The Relax Riesling from the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer winery. This was another fruity wine but not nearly as sweet as the first. It also had a strong apple bouquet but with a peach undertone. This was a very refreshing wine and was very crisp. It is definitely worth the $11.99 price tag, if you can get past the ultra modern blue bottle with 80s modern typography. This bottle was polished off faster than any of the others;I was scrambling to chill more wine almost immediately after opening it. (Available at Philbrick's Fresh Market, Rt 1, Portsmouth)

Bottle 3.
Bottle three was a 2003 Framinette from the Goose Watch winery in the Finger Lakes region of New York. This wine is compared to a Gewurztraminer, and I love Gewurztraminer. This is the second bottle that we have gone through in as many weeks and believe I am now tapped out. Looks like the movers may be sending a recon mission to upstate New York, or maybe we could find a satellite member to get some more. To me this wine had a strong aroma of Pear and vanilla. The color was similar to the Vignoles but was a little clearer if at all possible. This was the driest wine of the night and it is quite good for an experimental grape developed by Cornell.

Bottle 4.
Dessert. We served the Cayuga Ridge Estate Cranberry Frost (non-vintage). A sparkling cranberry dessert wine. A delightful wine. Moxie felt that it did not go well with the Butter Pecan Ice Cream that she had made. I on the other hand was excited to see if complete opposites would go together. If the tartness of the cranberry would make the ice cream seem creamier and smoother and in return have the ice cream make the wine seam tarter. I think it was successful. After a couple of bites of ice cream the tartness of the wine was almost overpowering. The more sips you took of the wine the more smooth it became until you ate more ice cream. I enjoyed it.

Reserve.
We also had a four pack of Midas Touch on hand just in case the wine was not enough. Not quite beer not quite wine not quite mead. It is described a "Handcrafted Ancient Ale with barley, honey, white muscat grapes & saffron". It is very good.

Movers Croquet in Rye

Members in attendance: Mycroft, Ace, the Lady Aubergine (going simply as "Egg" for the day), Hot Sauce!, & me - Moxie

We arrived in one car, dressed all in black as planned, with our own croquet mallets. Hot Sauce! gets the award for ballsiest outfit - somewhat reminiscent of 80's German club-wear. The Lady Aubergine tried to foil the plan several times, afraid we were going to actually get involved in some sort of croquet turf war and be exposed for the non-croquet pros we actually are. But we persevered, and she gamely went along.

Several of the men in white, the real croquet players, were instantly happy to see us. We heard things like, "Check out the competition!" and "If they challenge us, say no." Everyone was really impressed and happy to see us, although I don't think anyone noticed our fake skull-and-mallet tattoos. People were taking our picture left and right, some woman took what seemed like an official picture and asked what our club was called. Ace promptly answered, "We're The Movers." She didn't even blink.

We started with a game of 9-wicket on grass, and were promptly exposed as not at all being able to play croquet. We didn't even know the rules at all. I have to say, I loved the tone of the whole day. Here we show up with our own mallets, don't even know how to play, and everyone still takes us really seriously and no one calls us out as the frauds we are (were - now we are croquet masters). Tom was our instructor for the 9-wicket, and we got our money's worth right there. We learned so much about the strategy and skilz, it was awesome.

Everyone kept asking us, "Where does your club play?" Oh, in backyards, we answered. Initially we were trying to be like, "Oh, we play a different style, on a really big court" stuff like that, but we gave that up pretty quick and just focused on learning everything we could.

Then we got a chance at the 6 wicket court, the built in Rhode Island sand one. That was really fun. The wickets are narrow, the mallets huge and heavy, the balls are maybe rubber? Ilsa was our instructor, and much as I love Tom, Ilsa rocked our party world. She kept saying really cute stuff in her thick accent, like, "Send him to the boonies! the boonies!" She also taught us a lot of technical shots, like the split shot, the stop shot - I can't remember any more.

We kept getting invited to play with people - but of course, they play during the day, when all us suckers work. Another moment I didn't witness, but Ace told me about later, was when one of the ladies in white, Marie, was trying to set us up with an instructor for the 6-wicket course and asked this man - didn't hear what he whispered to her, but she apparently responded, "oh no, don't worry, they're very nice." Like he was afraid of us, all dressed in black like that.

Two lowpoints, but not that big a deal: Jim, the owner of the place, convinced Hot Sauce! and the Lady Aubergine to buy a raffle ticket. So they go over, and ask Lorrine(?) to buy one. She looks at them, shakes the basket around a bit, then says, "Nope. We already started." Bitch.
The other thing is that Ace kept giving up our real names! Like he told Tom his real name, then when he gave one of our tattoos to another lady in white, he gave her Mycroft's real name. Not to nitpick, but whose always so concerned about the secrecy?

It was a really fun day, all in all, and we were there for hours and hours. Hot Sauce! and I both were figuring an hour, but we were there for 3 1/2. And it wasn't super crowded or anything. Definitely going to go back next year.

Later we had dinner at the beach palace. And drank some wine. And ate some homemade ice cream.