squeeze the fruit...

business trip to managua! when my flight was delayed almost 2 hours, I got really homesick. for Managua. really? Wow. My first stop: the most gourmet restaurant in town: “auto mac” (drive through mickey d’s... car + fast food= like, whoa- I hadn't seen a car in over a month)!

I spent some time at basically every purveyor we use (many of which I had been to last year), and a whole morning at the Managua market (for which I will never be homesick) with Tomasa, the wife of the hotel’s taxista/supply runner.

Tomasa is the best. She rocks out all of the grocery shopping for the kitchen. She has a great sense of humor, knows food, and is just overall intelligent. 

I’ve never bought produce so underripe... but the trek it goes through to get to Little Corn includes squeezing it into 2 huge canastas (baskets), 3 days on an open air truck to the coast, then a long morning on a crowded boat over here. We also send a cooler via commercial plane once a week with meat/dairy for same-day delivery.

left: very green papayas ready for transport... right: upon arrival

Tomasa and I had some great communication, I clarified a few things about my orders. we now have two weekly phone calls to go over orders and questions, too.  We reorganized the order sheet, and made a few changes to how things are packed.

for example,

since our cantelopes always come in damaged and moldy,  I decided to change how they are packed: we moved them into the basket with the vegetables. Exciting, I know... but there’s something about fruit on fruit action that encourages quick maturation (something else I’d never really thought about back in SF). it worked! not one came in spoiled.

plus, Tomasa treated me to avocado, mimbro (a delicious sour fruit) and helped me find some fun Jicaro seed soup spoons...

and then, back to Little Corn- So surreal being on the panga thinking, “i’m on my way home!”  Back to... “the grind?” of island working and living.

but no, things are not perfect. unfortunately, yesterday, the cantelope did not come at all.

(commodores reference to this post's title here)