Lychee

A week ago today I took my circus nephews Dennis and Philip for some Thai food. We have missed a year and a half of birthday meals!

I suggested Thai; they love Thai. They chose the place up on Lindbergh in Florissant, and so we went.

Philip mentioned that he liked the lychee drink, so I told both of them to order an individual drink for themselves. And out came this tall glass of lychee nectar with some tinned, seeded lychee on the top as dressing. (He only played me ever so slightly, as I found out later that the lychee drink is a birthday treat for the birthday boy, and they don’t get lychee nectar every time they go for Thai food.)

One of them mentioned that they had never had a fresh lychee. Now I love lychee, and know that local international markets often carry the fruit, along with longan and rambutan. I found some longan the next day at Global Foods in Kirkwood, and then went to Costco for a long list of things. Lo and behold, they had clamshells of Guatemalan-grown rambutan. So I bought one. That evening, I made a nocturnal trip to the circus yard at Circus Flora, surprising the cast who were still there. The longan and rambutan were a hit with most of them.

On Saturday, being in the area running an errand, I stopped by Costco again, intending to buy several clamshells of rambutan and take them to the circus again.

Costco had two clamshells left. That’s it for the season. I bought them both.

One is now empty after I ate all of them (sharing two with neighbor who had never even heard of them). The other was devoured on Sunday at Circus Flora.

I am now on the lookout for lychee all the time.

And I don’t mind tinned lychee either, so I have two cans of the fruit in my pantry now.