Posts By suwanneerose

Mango Season

After months of watching them grow, they’re finally getting ripe.  Some mangos turn bright beautiful colors, but others stay green or yellow.   One sure sign a mango is ready is clear sap dripping down the side.

Bok Tower Gardens

There are lots of attractions in central Florida where you can pretend to be somewhere else, but if you’d like to experience the natural beauty of Florida, forgo the theme parks and visit Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales.  

Crispy Mutton Snapper with Cilantro Garlic Sauce

Mutton snapper are the only sport fish in Florida that thrive in depths from 3 feet to over 300 feet of water. That gives it an extraordinary range and a wide variety of habitats where it can thrive. Their key spawning ground in Florida is a place known as Riley’s Hump, a reef area near… Read More

Green Mango Salad

I eat a lot of green papaya salad at my neighborhood Thai restaurant.  The owner jokes that the Thai don’t wait for fruit to be ripe.  If they’re hungry, they eat it.  And they know how to make it taste incredible.  

Sapodilla Custard

Have you ever tried a sapodilla?  The fruit looks like a kiwi; small and brown with sandpapery skin.  It tastes like a spoonful of caramelized brown sugar, with the texture of a pear.  The Mayans used the rubbery sapodilla sap, called chicle, to make the world’s first chewing gum.

Florida Frosty

Happy Fourth of July!  Here’s something to keep you cool at the beach, with or without the rum.

Thai Mango and Lychee Curry

My father-in-law gave me a cookbook called The Spice Merchant’s Daughter.  It’s my favorite cookbook of all time.  The author, Christina Arokiasamy, grew up in Malaysia and has cooked for resorts throughout Southeast Asia.

Okra and Corn Fritters

Fried okra is a rare treat for me.  I won’t get my fix at a restaurants because it’s always disappointing and often sickening.  And forget some shake-and-bake coating pretending to taste fried.  It doesn’t work for okra.  Trust me, I have tried.