It's been a busy day. My oldest ds and I cooked a meal from St. Lucia, and everything about it was exotic and difficult to replicate. The first dish we tried was "Greenfig Salad". The recipe was sketchy. I'd never heard of green figs, but I was excited when I found a package of dried figs in the produce section of the local Save On foods that showed green figs on the cover. This in contrast to the package sitting next to it with a picture of brown figs. Ta-da! I'd found them.
Or maybe not. We did a little more research this morning and discovered that greenfigs are actually small green bananas that grow in a bunch. They're about 3 - 4 inches long and kind of like plantains. Luckily, I'd bought plantains because the recipe mentioned green bananas in the "how-to" section, even though it didn't list them in the ingredients. We made do.
Another recipe called for breadfruit. I searched high and low for breadfruit, but I couldn't find it anywhere. The produce guy at the Save On looked it up for me. They didn't carry it, but he told me its flesh had a nutty flavor when baked. Hmmmm. That sounded a little like butternut squash, and that's what we decided to substitute. I'm going to harass one of my California friends until they recreate the recipe with the real deal. I figure they can find breadfruit down there.
I've also been working with an artist to create images for the novel I intend to serialize soon. That's been an eye-opener. I gave him a description of what I wanted. He produced a fantastic image. But some of the details were off, so I sent him another list of "to-do's" with instructions on how to make it exactly "right". He followed my instructions to the letter.
His first image was better. I didn't realize how he'd carefully crafter the balance, the colors, the placement of objects, etc., until I made him change them. Correct is not necessarily right. I think there's a life lesson in there somewhere. I just don't know what it is.
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