Marang Fruit

Marang - Artocarpus odoratissimus

This fruit is about halfway between jackfruit and breadfruit, and a member of the same family. It grows on large trees (larger usually than jackfruit) and smells wonderful. That, of course is why someone called it 'odoratissimus'.

The skin is made of countless tiny tubules or spines, and you simply cut through it and twist it off, to reveal the individual fruit (actually arils, about the size of a grape). Each one of these has a large seed inside (which you can also eat, after boiling or roasting).

There's not a lot of taste to a marang, but it does smell good.

These are some I photographed in the Surigao City fruit market, going nicely yellow as they ripen.

Actually, there's a superb photograph at MVI~'s photostream at Flickr, which I can't compete with.
You'll also find more information at the ever-indispensable Wikipedia.

Shedney loves them; I am ordered, indeed commanded, to bring some whenever I do a bank run to Surigao City.

(There don't seem to be many exotic local fruit available here on Siargao Island. If people have a tree like this in their garden, it tends to go to the family, and no-one else).

Shedney Being a Dam' Nuisance

Part of my reasoning for my extravagant investment in Shedney's new sari-sari store was to stop her sitting around like this beside my work desk, doing her devilish and seductive best to distract me.

New Supermarket in General Luna

It's not often that I get invited to open many supermarkets these days, so it was with great pleasure that I officially presided over the opening of Shedney's new sari-sari shop in a nearby street in General Luna.It's not often that I finance a supermarket, either, but I reckoned this was worthwhile project for Shedney, and would keep her occupied, with enough profit for her to buy some of the little absolute essentials that all women seem to need, like hair conditioner regular manicures, etc.




Hopefully, she will become quite self-financing, and my investment ($200) can be repaid, and might even return a profit.It's got all the usual wide range of goods that any sari-sari store has: canned beans, sardines, corned beef, tuna, shampoo and toothpaste sachets, snack packs, soft drinks, sweets, eggs, rum (junior lapad - 375ml at US75c), in other words exactly the same as any other local small shop has.

And she's working hard. She also makes bananacue, fried small bananas coated in sugar, yerma, a sort of toffee ball made with condensed milk and sugar.

Expensive Birds

I always knew there was one small tiny problem involved with keeping a pretty woman; decoration, maintenance and upkeep costs.
The town Fiesta is due on Friday, so there is a travelling fair of ukay-ukay stalls set up on the foreshore next to my neighbouring village of squatting fishermen, Mabua, between me and the creek. Ukay-ukay is basically second-hand clothes (yes - you know the ones you dutifully collect for the poor of the world? Well, they get bought up on arrival by Chinese traders, and farmed out to the local equivalent of Gypsies, who travel from town to town at fiesta time. They sell sheeting by the kilo, T shirts for 50p ($1),shorts for 100p, and so on.
On Monday night, I took Shedney out for our usual pub-crawl from Lalay's at the end of the Boulevard, to Nine Bar just up the road from me.
Only then did I notice that the short-short-shorts she was wearing had a broken zip, so when the tails of her shirt opened, everyone could see her her sweet little cotton-clad pussy.
So I blew up; just quietly exploded, thrust a 500p ($5) note into her hand and growled that she'd better get to the bulanon (ukay-ukay market) first thing in the morning, and get herself some new (and longer) shorts.

So what did the little minx do? She went straight up to Larry's Reef Break Shop (good website), where he has an enticing show of beachwear, and bought herself a grand new ensemble, plus a T-shirt and pair of short-short-shorts. The short-short-shorts have a hand-embroidered motto: "I AM A SIARGAO ISLAND SURF BITCH", and she blew the whole goddam' $5!

But she does look good in it, I must say.

And so thought Harry the Canadian Real Estate Millionaire, as he gazed, tongue lolling out, at that little area just below her collar bone.