Yesterday while shopping at Fiesta Mart, a Texas (as far as I know) supermarket chain that specializes in ethnic foods and really fresh veggies, fruits and seafood (i.e., still swimming in the tank fresh fish), I found a long-lost friend: genips (see photo). Also known as genepas or mamocillas, this fruit was one of my favorite things to eat when I was a kid living in St. Croix. The season for ripe genips is very brief, and we kids would fill paper grocery bags full of the ripe fruit and sit in happy, sticky bliss as we sucked the ripe pulp off the seed. It's a lot of work for little reward, because there's only about an eighth to a quarter of an inch of soft fruit wrapped around an enormous seed, but to me it's worth it. I haven't seen or eaten a genip for 40 years, so the produce people in Fiesta Mart were quite amused at the public display of excitement I made when I realized what I'd found. My family was benevolently pleased for me, and Jackson generously tried a small taste in a show of familial solidarity but decided it was not to his taste. That's okay -- more for me.
So today is dedicated to my island life, in honor of the genips and because of the heat, with short shorts, passion fruit juice and rum, and a second trip to Fiesta Mart for more genips.
My rum of choice is Cruzan Rum, which is made on St. Croix. See www.cruzanrum.com. I have a sentimental attachment to the rum factory, but irrespective of sentiment, it's damned fine rum. Try it -- you'll like it. I'm partial to the dark rum, but the light rum is great for mojitos (muddle mint leaves in a glass, add sugar or simple syrup, club soda, lime juice, rum and ice cubes),and they now make a bunch of flavored rums which are great over ice or mixed with fruit juice or club soda.
The factory has been in the hands of the same family since its inception, and as a seventh grader I had the privilege of taking a tour with the rest of my science class. My father contracted with the rum factory to service the instruments that kept all of the machines functioning properly (this was a long time ago, before computers, but we did have color back then), so he was always welcome.
I know that in this Politically Correct era a science class field trip to a rum factory sounds downright evil, but we thought nothing of it and somehow managed to grow up to be functioning adults anyway with the minimum of alcohol abuse in our backgrounds. At the end of the tour, we were each presented with two samples of rum, one light and one dark. Dad promptly confiscated mine (damn). One of my friends, who now has a wonderful kayak fishing business in Corpus Christi -- see www.blueheronadventures.com -- made a big show of drinking the samples at school during lunch, forgetting a few important things: (1) we lived on a VERY small island; (2) our dads were friends; (3) chances were REALLY good they'd run into each other during the day and chances were even better that the subject of the field trip would come up. They did, it did, and Steve's dad was waiting for those two samples after Steve got home from school. GROUNDED! But Steve managed to turn out okay too, so no harm done.
As for cooking, I am making my friend Kirby's never fail chicken recipe. Kirby was born in Taiwan and raised in Hong Kong, and her cooking is amazing. Here's what you do: Take a whole chicken and, the night before you want to cook it (or a couple of hours before), rub it with white or rice wine and white pepper. When you're ready to cook it, heat a pot of water containing a cup of white or rice wine, a few slices of ginger, 2 tablespoons of salt (or half a cup if you like things salty) and enough water to cover half the chicken. When that starts to boil, put the chicken in breast side down and cover it. Turn the heat to 7 or medium hot and cook for 30 minutes if it's a 3-lb. chicken or 20 minutes if it's less than 3 lbs. At the end of the cooking time, turn off the burner and leave the chicken in the pot for at least 3 hours. DO NOT REMOVE THE LID. Slice it up and arrange it nicely on a plate and pour the sauce over it.
SAUCE: Heat olive oil (any oil for high heat, but I'm partial to olive oil) until you see steam and then add four finely chopped green onions, a finely chopped piece of ginger slightly bigger than your thumb and one teaspoon of salt. Stir evenly and spread on chicken.
This is a very delicately flavored dish and I'm planning to serve it with jasmine rice and steamed bok choy, if the kids will let me. Kirby thought I should include a photo of the finished product, but I can't slice chicken and arrange it as well as she does, so I'll leave it to your imaginations and just go with the photo of the genips.
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