The Great Coconut Project of 2006
What happens when Brandon and I go grocery shopping together? For one thing, we buy way more food than normal, because rather than just me running around, checking prices and worrying if peaches for $1.29 a pound are too expensive, there's Brandon as well, who's running around going "why don't we ever buy these prickly mango things? They're $6? Woah, no way." And he also says "Ooooh! Let's buy some salmon! And pineapple! And coconuts!" And I play mom a little by responding "Sure, let's get some fish. No, cake is bad. We're trying to be healthy. Why do you want a prickly mango?"
Anyway, we bought our first coconut. For one thing, the outside smelled like it had been buried a while. And OH MY GOSH IT WAS SOOO HARD TO CRACK OPEN. Seriously. So I thought I'd document it for your viewing pleasure. Oh but first, let me give you the instructions. Here's how it should have went down, according to some website:
1. Hold coconut over a bowl in one hand such that the "midriff" rests in the middle of your palm, with the tip on one end and the eyes on the other.
2. Whack the coconut with the back (that is to say the blunt side) of the cleaver a few times all around the center until it cracks open cleanly into two nearly equal halves. Make sure you use the blunt side of the cleaver.
3. Catch the juice in the bowl as it drains from the cracks.
Here's the coconut resting in one of my favorite mixing bowls. May it rest in peace... and in pieces.
And here's Brandon, posing before taking a swat. Notice he's not using a meat cleaver, because we don't have one. Believe me, it's not because we don't want one. We just never really thought of it, what with not being butchers. Oh, and the mountain lion calendar? We just have it because it was on sale, and normally we scrawl captions on the pages with a sharpie. We used to have a teddy bear calendar (one that a middle aged spinster lady would LOVE) and it was so much easier to mock.
Here's Brandon taking a swing. Goodbye, bowl.
Success! (By the way, his t-shirt says "totally fresh". Hee!)
Ah the taste of sweet victory. Except it was more watery than expected. And there were pieces of the outside of the coconut floating inside. And yeah, it was nothing like we expected. And if we were on a tropical island, we wouldn't waste our time on coconuts. Other castaways beware.
Anyway, we bought our first coconut. For one thing, the outside smelled like it had been buried a while. And OH MY GOSH IT WAS SOOO HARD TO CRACK OPEN. Seriously. So I thought I'd document it for your viewing pleasure. Oh but first, let me give you the instructions. Here's how it should have went down, according to some website:
1. Hold coconut over a bowl in one hand such that the "midriff" rests in the middle of your palm, with the tip on one end and the eyes on the other.
2. Whack the coconut with the back (that is to say the blunt side) of the cleaver a few times all around the center until it cracks open cleanly into two nearly equal halves. Make sure you use the blunt side of the cleaver.
3. Catch the juice in the bowl as it drains from the cracks.
Here's the coconut resting in one of my favorite mixing bowls. May it rest in peace... and in pieces.
And here's Brandon, posing before taking a swat. Notice he's not using a meat cleaver, because we don't have one. Believe me, it's not because we don't want one. We just never really thought of it, what with not being butchers. Oh, and the mountain lion calendar? We just have it because it was on sale, and normally we scrawl captions on the pages with a sharpie. We used to have a teddy bear calendar (one that a middle aged spinster lady would LOVE) and it was so much easier to mock.
Here's Brandon taking a swing. Goodbye, bowl.
Success! (By the way, his t-shirt says "totally fresh". Hee!)
Ah the taste of sweet victory. Except it was more watery than expected. And there were pieces of the outside of the coconut floating inside. And yeah, it was nothing like we expected. And if we were on a tropical island, we wouldn't waste our time on coconuts. Other castaways beware.
