• Creative Non-fiction,  Essays,  Food,  Uncategorized

    Uña de gato/Cat’s Claw

    A neighbor has a vine hanging over the sidewalk in front of her house. Last week I noticed fruit covering the plant, unusual fruit. I can’t recall other fruit similar to this as it has leaves growing directly from the skin of the fruit. Of course, I asked what it was. 

    “Uña de gato/Cat’s Claw,” my neighbor said.

    I googled Cat’s Claw and found it is an important Traditional/Ethnobotanical medicinal plant reputed to be effective for curing cancer.

    Today, Cat’s Claw and its extract, Samento, a supplement containing pentacyclic oxindole alkaloids extracted from the Cat’s Claw plant, is used as a dietary supplement for a variety of health conditions. including viral infections (such as herpes, shingles, and HIV), Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, arthritis, diverticulitis, peptic ulcers, colitis, gastritis, hemorrhoids, parasites, and leaky bowel syndrome. Whoa!

  • Creative Non-fiction,  Essays,  Food

    Frambuesas/Raspberries

    can you really buy isotretinoin online Lake Chapala

    We looked across Lake Chapala and saw white patches standing out against the green of the surrounding hillsides. Arranged in geometric patterns, they lay at odd angles to each other.

    What is this we’re seeing?

    Curious, we asked that question to people walking along Chapala’s malecón, the lakeside promenade lined with food and souvenir vendors. Everyone we asked gave us a polite answer. However, all the answers were different. The replies that seemed most probable revolved around some agricultural practice.

  • Creative Non-fiction,  Food,  Uncategorized

    ¿Pistachee?

     

    There is a row of beautiful trees lining Avenida Mexico in front of Parque Hidalgo here in Puerto Vallarta. I walk by these trees several times each week and right now they are heavy with a fruit I mistook for olives.

    I asked an old man sitting in the park what kind of tree this was—“¿Qué  tipo de árbol es este?

    Arrayan,” he replied.

    I thought he was wrong. So I took a couple of pictures and pulled down a high branch to examine the fruit.

  • Creative Non-fiction,  Essays,  Food,  Uncategorized

    Way Down Yonder in the Pawpaw Patch

    Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.

    – Charles R. Swindoll

    I suppose my first grade teacher deposited this one.

     

    My son recently sent me a note with a couple of photos he took of Pawpaws he picked “in the wild” from an island in the Potomac River near Washington, DC.

    When I looked at his pictures, a flood of memories from the public elementary school I attended hit me. And this song we sang magically reappeared:

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