Happy # 241 America

As we shopped Mt. Royal for ears of corn and kebabs I saw a jackfruit. It was the only one in the store and the only one I’ve ever seen in Minnesota although I can’t be sure if I’ve seen them in big warm weather cities with significant populations of SE Asians. I bought it.

Years ago my Filipino friends told me how heavenly jackfruit was and I’m a sucker for trying exotic fruits. The one I bought may not have been fully ripe and it was tiny for a jackfruit at 15.8 pounds. Fortunately the Internet has helpful jackfruit preparation videos so I learned how to slice it open and get the fruit out. It was a lot like melon but a little sweeter but the fruit has been described as having the texture of calamari. You have to wrest each one out of a thicket of fruit fibers that are said to cook up like a vegetarian pulled pork. We won’t be trying that but Claudia looked up a recipe for jackfruit preserves so we may give that a go. My daughter wants to cook the big chestnut sized seeds in the fruit into a hummus.

This was a little less orthodox than the game of croquet I set up but memorable in its own way. So too was the Duluth fireworks display. We deemed our grandsons old enough to crawl up on our daughter’s and son-in-law’s roof to watch them. I can be dimly made out at the crest of the roof just above the boys.

We could see the Superior Fireworks going off at the same time making it look a little like the Battle of Fort McHenry. Oh, say we could see.

About the author

Harry is a ferociously good natured eccentric in Duluth Minnesota who detests traitors dressed up as Uncle Sam. You can find somewhat better edited writings of his at the Duluth Reader "contributors." page. The URL is:

https://duluthreader.com/contributors/h/84/284-harry-welty