RSSA delicious thing I ate one time: Recreating the past, one dish at a time
QUICKREAD
WATERMELON OTAI
1 medium seedless watermelon
1 20-ounce can crushed pineapple
1 cup flaked coconut
1 1/2 cups fat-free half-and-half* or
1 12-oz. can fat-free evaporated milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoon lime juice
2–3 cups ice
1. Slice the watermelon and discard the rind. With a cheese grater, grate the fruit into a large bowl.
2. Add the pineapple with juice, coconut, half-and-half, sugar and lime juice; stir.
3. Add the ice; when it’s mostly melted, stir the otai again then ladle into glasses and serve. Refrigerate otai in a covered container.
* I haven’t tried it yet, but I think coconut milk in place of the half-and-half would be delicious, too.
Have you recreated A Delicious Thing You Ate One Time? Contact Rachel Sauer at 256-4263 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for future stories about memories of delicious in The Daily Sentinel.
There’s a poignant loveliness in the best preserved memories — flowers in amber that are slow to fade. I carry them with me, knowing that times change and that I change, and to try recreating what exists perfect in memory can only be disappointing.
Unless it’s A Delicious Thing I Ate One Time.
If it’s A Delicious Thing I Ate One Time, then the memory is: gobble it all, rewind, gobble it again and look around for more.
I may not always remember my address and phone number, say, or the exact location of my car, but I remember every good thing I’ve eaten in my whole life. And rather than wallow in some florid, Proustian remembrance of things past like an overwrought philosophy major, I prefer to get out my measuring spoons. Because I would like more. Lots of it. Immediately.
If it’s not as good as I remember? Eh. That’s a risk I’m willing to take, because the rewards of recreating A Delicious Thing I Ate One Time (and that’s how I think of it, capitalized like that) are just, well ... consider the otai.
Several years ago, my sister made a drink called otai, the recipe for which she got from some Tongan friends, that’s made out of magic and rainbow juice, as far as I could tell. I kind of remember watching her make it, but my memories of drinking it are this:
!!!!!!!!YAYYY!!!!!***YUMMMMMM!!!$$$EEEEEE!!***
It’s good, is what I’m saying.
So, the other day, as I pondered the watermelons at City Market, I practically swooned with sudden otai memories. Want it! Now! I whipped out my phone to call my sister, then remembered: She and her family were on vacation! Nooo!!!
Oh, well. I could make it. I closed my eyes in the middle of the produce section and envisioned that afternoon: I was leaning against the counter and my sister was… grating watermelon with a cheese grater? Yes! That’s what she did. Then she added, um (think, Rachel!) coconut! And crushed pineapple! And something creamy. Milk? No, half-and-half! Plus, ice.
I darted through the aisles, snatching ingredients, and raced home.
I did a perfunctory Google search before getting started, and the recipes I found seemed somewhat near to what I had in mind. However, I needed this otai to be exactly right, so I’d have to trust myself. I started grating the watermelon.
I tasted and added, tasted and added, and splashed in some lime juice because what the heck, lime juice makes everything better.
The result? !!!!!!!!YAYYY!!!!!***EEEE!!!!! I know I was lucky, and that future experiments might not turn out so well, but still: yum.
It’s not just A Delicious Thing I Ate One Time, but A Delicious Thing I Ate This Morning, and Yesterday, and the Day Before, and ...
COMMENTS
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.