I bought this coconut. I wasn’t sure, exactly, what I’d do with it. I’d never in fact bought a coconut before- at least not in North America. I think I bought it because I wanted a shift in my every day. I looked for recipes of how to use fresh coconut. And I discovered through experimentation that fresh grated coconut tastes better after it’s cooked than before and that you can replace just about any dried unsweetened coconut with fresh. My blog here or here has the results of my cupcake recipe.
I also thought of the people in Haiti, not that I’ve been there, but I spent two months in Southeast Asia and the poverty I witnessed in Cambodia came back to me in pictures and smells and coconuts. I am saddened by the devastation, but I don’t think those words are enough. Just like I haven’t been able to adequately express the experience of traveling in Asia for two months, I cannot express my heartache over Haitian’s heart break.
I’m working on revisions of The Cake Princess, feeling vulnerable the way my characters do- that’s my news. I guess the coconut was a diversion down a familiar path of thought.
