From the distinct fruity smell I soon discerned that they were passionfruit.  Eating them fresh was novel, but a bit sour.  I started to think about the Lillikoi pie I enjoyed in Hawaii years ago and wound up at my computer flipping through recipies.  I didn’t feel like making a pie though.  I didn’t want to eat dessert but did want to capture the essence of the passionfruit.  Somehow I came across references to curd in pies and then came up with the idea of making passionfruit curd.  I looked up lemon curd recipies and figured I could just replace the lemon juice with passionfruit juice.

The result was yummier than I imagined.  Peter couldn’t get enough of it.  We put it on toast, pancakes, and added it to yogurt.  Soon I was noticing passionfruit sold in the local markets although they weren’t yellow, but rather purple.  The inside color was the same however.

Of course I asked my favorite farmers at the organic farmers market whether they ever sold passionfruit.  They told me to wait till June.  June came and still no passionfruit.  Finally, a few weeks ago, they finally appeared.  Since then, I’ve made some for friends as well as our consumption.  This week I made more in hopes of taking some home to Seattle and to have a lingering taste of Taiwan.

Passionfruit start out smooth.  This one has started to wrinkle a little bit.  They are at their peak sweetness when they are wrinkled all over although the rind should still feel hard.

These, for instance, are ready!  They may become somewhat discolored.  I have found this is ok.  They just can’t be soft.  The fruit is relatively hollow so they sort of feel like wrinkled ping pong balls.

Here is one cut open.  Black things are seeds.  They are wrapped in membranes and juice.  You can eat the seeds but I find them annoying.

Here are the juice/seeds before and after blending.  Blending it breaks up the membranes so that I can drain the juice out.

Unfortunately I have found you can’t just pour the processed seed/juice through a strainer and expect it to flow.  The seeds block up the holes.  So (and this is the most tedious part of making the curd) you have to sit there and stir the stuff so that the juice drains.  Eventually you are left with a pile of seed fragments which you scoop out and discard.  I had to do this a bunch of times because I could only pour a portion of the juice/seed blend at once.

Finally – liquid gold!  I used this juice where a lemon curd recipe calls for lemon juice.

And then the finished creamy end product over my homemade yogurt.  SOOOOO good.

Lucy and Leo helped out with my last batch.  Scooping out seeds/juice is a good activity for kids although you need to cut the fruit for them first.  Since they are sort of hard and slippery, cutting them should be done by an adult and with a serated knife.

But in the past few months I’ve made a habit of going to the organic farmers market, that was literally steps away from my apartment yet unknown to me for a long time, every week.  At first I only bought a few things, but now it has become my main source for fruit and vegetables.   They are open Friday afternoons and Saturdays and I’ve become a walking advertisement for it because I’ve found so many unique goodies to share with friends there that they have started to remark about my relationship to this market. I often go by myself, but from time to time Lucy or Leo will accompany me. Leo in particular loves to pull the hand cart I got for my pedestrian shopping trips.

My friends in Seattle will recall my love of Trader Joe’s and how whenever I had something tasty to share I was famous for saying, “I got it from Trader Joe’s!”… Well, the same seems to be happenning with this farmers market. It’s a tiny market – less than 10 stalls. But almost every one has something uniquely tasty. I’ve sampled every stall and seem to be getting to know a couple of the farmers well. No meat (well, there’s fish) but you can buy eggs (fresh, salted, preserved), tofu (in at least 5 different forms), any fruit in season, vegetables of all kinds, sauces, jams, vinegars, sesame products (candy, health drinks, etc.), dried fruits, etc. etc…

Lately we have been eating a lot of cucumber and tomato salad. I have a favorite farmer – basically because everything I buy from him tastes amazing. So far nothing is mediocre from this guy. His grape tomatos are super sweet. I also buy a bunch of what we would call Japanese cucumbers in the states, toss with the tomatos, add mozzarella cheese I get from my milk delivery, splash on some dressing, and then the kids get tons of fresh vegetables into their system. Yes, I do have to remind Leo not to eat all the cheese right away but both kids have been pretty good about not doing that too much.

Our other recent habit is mangos. Mangos are in season now in Taiwan and the kids have been fighting over who must be getting more mango. Not only must one count the pieces each child gets, but they have also been commenting on the relative size of their pieces. I think this is called sibling rivalry.

Another thing the kids have been enjoying is black sesame candy.  The term candy is used loosely here – I don’t think these treats have a lot of sugar in them.  There is some to be sure, but they really are more fragrant than sweet.  It’s just a soft ball of ground black sesame seeds – super healthy if a bit high in calorie.  Versions of these can be bought (as all things found at the farmers market can be) elsewhere, but that are more like regular candy (lots of sugar and additives/preservatives) so I haven’t been as keen on offering them as a regular snack to the kids.

Another thing you can do at 7-11 is buy tickets to concerts, shows, and sporting events. Before this week I have bought tickets to shows by faxing in an order form or directly on-line. However, when I went to go buy tickets to the Winne the Pooh show at the Taipei Convention Center coming up this weekend, the web site required registering for membership etc. and I decided, well, why not give this 7-11 thing a try since I’d heard other people use that method.

When I got to 7-11, I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, but I soon spied a promising looking machine in the corner. It wasn’t an ATM but looked similar. It wasn’t immediately obvious to me when I walked up to it that I was correct, but I found an option that had the character for “ticket” on it and figured I’d give it a try. I was then given two options which I didn’t know how to read, but I had my handy IPhone with me that has a Chinese-English dictionary installed so I soon puzzled out that I was looking at buying tickets and ticket pick-up. I picked buying tickets of course and then I was able to read the following – movie tickets, transportation tickets… and something like 4 other choices which I wasn’t sure about. I ruled out the movie and transportation tickets and decided to just make a guess on the other 4. I don’t remember then exactly what I might have pushed, but I eventually guessed my way into finding the “family entertainment” at which time I saw the word DISNEY and thought – “bingo!” Being illiterate is a real pain, but I suppose I’m just literate enough to guess my way through every day life. I suppose I was always good at all those multiple choice tests growing up. Things haven’t changed and honestly, I apply the same skills. I learned things as well – next time I want to go to the movies or take a train I know where to go!

The machine let me pick seats and eventually spit out a bunch of paper. It didn’t ask me for any money but the paper had barcodes on it so based on my experience paying bills at 7-11 (where the cashier scans a barcode on your bill when you pay it) I guessed (again) that I should take the paper to the cashier. Before it spit out the paper I did read a message on the screen that told me I had to do something within 10 minutes. I presumed it was talking about my needing to complete the transaction by paying for the tickets. I walked over to the cashier and handed him my papers. Sure enough he scanned the barcode and asked me for money. I handed over some cash, he asked me to wait, and after a couple minutes out popped some tickets from a machine behind him. Cool! And there wasn’t even a service charge like Ticket Master charges back in the states. I fully expected one and was surprised when there was not.

The promising looking machine.

My papers and the machine with lots of options on it behind it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCbw67s-NxI

Start watching at about 1:35 in to skip some intro stuff that is funny (my kids love the bathroom humor that transcends language) but doesn’t have any dancing.

Then, for our version see below.  Not *quite* the same huh?

Ours was taped from behind because that is how we’re used to watching our teacher.  Try looking in the mirror to see how we would look from the front.

My uncle has lately been reading lots of food blogs and made a list of restaurants for us to try. It seems every city in Taiwan has it’s specialties that can’t be found elsewhere. So we went looking for breakfast first. Unfortunately we got to the breakfast place too late. They had already sold out of that morning’s food and closed up shop. But, it was around 10:30 so we went to a place he had in mind for lunch instead. Luckily that place was already open and welcoming customers. Here are some pix of what we ate:

After lunch we planned to go to a botanical garden, but when we got there we discovered it was tiny and didn’t have much to see so we went further up whatever road it was on and found a hiking trail. Unfortunately Leo flat out refused to go. He didn’t like that it was also a road and was concerned that any minute that a truck would come barrelling down I suppose. At any rate, Peter wasn’t around to carry him (and really, he shouldn’t be carried anymore anyway – he weighs 19kgs!) so after a while we turned back. The short walk we did get was pretty fun all the same.

As we drove away, we noticed a sign for some kind of recreational area by a lake.  Sounded good so we headed that way.  There we found a small lake nestled at the foot of some mountains.  The Yilan area seems to have a number of these small lakes at the base of mountains.  We rented a 4 person pedal car into which we stuffed all 4 adults as well as the 2 kids.  There we passed a very pleasant couple of hours.  In the middle of the lake was a tiny island with a footbridge leading to it.  On the island we were treated to a very comfortable breeze.  After two tours around the lake, we traded the pedal car for two bikes for the kids so they could play around a bit, and fed some ducks too.

Around 4pm we left the lake and decided to find some food.  Uncle Robert again had the name of a restaurant handy – this time in Luodong which also happened to have a pretty well regarded night market.  We decided to hit the night market first and then go to the restaurant.  Taipei, and Taiwan in general is famous for its night markets.  Despite living here almost two years we had yet to visit one so we were quite happy about it!

First we tried Ren Bing which I would have called a burrito, except the ingredients stuffed inside are decidedly Taiwanese and the outside pancake is extremely thin and made of high protein rice flour.  We were lucky and got to watch them making the pancakes which seemed to be a matter of pulling a glob of wet, sticky, elastic dough out of a big bowl and then sort of throwing it on the hot plate and immediately pulling back thus leaving a thin covering of starch on the hot plate later to be peeled off.

Slap and pull!

Peel carefully!

Lots of vegetables!

We got to the night market in the late afternoon so it wasn’t busy yet.  Nice relaxed time to visit.  Later in the evening the street would be packed and sitting around at a table watching someone make renbing wrappers probably would not work.  We also sampled lamb stew (which Lucy really liked surprisingly) and some onion pancakes that were among the best we’d ever tasted.

Finally we went to the restaurant, discovered it had closed, and then went to #2 on Uncle Robert’s list which was a sushi place to have some “real” dinner although we didn’t eat that much since we’d already done some snacking.

Apologies for this post being so tardy by the way.  I know it’s been almost a month since the actual day.   Wrapping up the end of school and making decisions regarding next year has been tough.  I have a backlog of posts and hope to have at least one a day over the next week or so to get caught up.

The most amusing thing I must share is that Lucy’s part is that of a boy.  She is one of 6 royal pages.  The girls suspect something, but otherwise don’t know this is the case (I think the flowers in their hair give them enough doubt they haven’t pestered us about it) and we haven’t said anything either way.  Nonetheless, they are still super cute.

 One thing that was really interesting was seeing the director in action positioning the dancers etc.  To help the kids, they have been putting colored stickers on the floor of the stage so they know where to stand.  She’s also been confident enough in these kids to be changing some of their moves on the fly – for instance whether they should sit or stand or adding a bit part where they should carry the King and Queen’s robes.  A lot for the kids to remember I think but so far they’ve done great and reminds me that kids often rise to the expectations you set for them.  Another intereting tidbit - the stage backgrounds are run by Microsoft Powerpoint.  They are slides projected onto a screen. 

If anyone wants tickets I believe they are still available.  Tickets start at 500NT.  Shows on Saturday 19:30 and Sunday 15:00.

But Taiwan seems to have a love/hate with US beef. See this picture we saw at a nearby noodle restaurant. Due to mad cows showing up in the US over last few years, some have been upset about all the beef imported from there. So some restaurants aren’t serving it whereas others are advertising it as a feature!

These are the graduates from Miss Candy’s class.  One (SinQi) is missing.