Paw Paws: "The Largest Edible Fruit Indigenous To the Continent"

Love-hate relationship with the paw paw in these parts. They are best at their ugliest, the blacker the better up to a point.

I lump them in with other fruits that I buy as soon as they show up, generally to wasteful effect. Not quite ripe, they languish until they are probably iffy. Then languish some more, until they are definitely iffy. Compost.

This is probably why I haven't written about them before, aside from this slight mention. I think they'd make great ice cream.

The guy working Lagier Ranches' booth at the Lakeshore market expects to have them for a few more weeks.

Paw Paws, Bronx Grapes, and the End of Summer

Axel and I bumped into friends at the Farmer's Market this morning, they were in the process of polishing off of a pound of Lagier Ranch Bronx Grapes. One offered up that he was sad to have decided he liked them during the last week that they would be available. So I seemed to have failed in my annual duty to alert friends and other browsers to the availability of the "Rolls Royce" of table grapes. There's a chance you'll be able to grab some next week, but it's no sure thing.

I should have know really, the Lagier Ranches stand also had Paw Paws today. A quick scroll through the archives suggests I haven't written about these before. The largest fruit native to North America, Paws Paws have a dense, creamy texture and taste something like a cross between a banana and a mango.

There are other indicators that summer is drawing to a close. Lakeshore Avenue was thick with people wearing Cal Bears gear. Big game against Tennessee tonight. In addition to the Gala apples we'd been eating for a few weeks, there were Fujis today. I was able to bring some home because Amy was out on a bike ride. If she'd been there, she would've insisted that she wasn't ready to have them in the house yet. Wild Boar Farms should have their Evan's Purple Plum tomatoes next week. And Andy Roddick just made quick work of an early round opponent at the U.S. Open, dispatching Thomas Johannson of Sweden in straight sets.