Postcards from New Zealand: Day Fifteen

At brunch, we had seen an "apple and feijoa" smoothie on the menu. We asked our waitress, "What's feijoa?" but she could only tell us the obvious: a fruit—saying that it was rather particular and hard to describe. At night, Aldo went to the main house to pay our rent, and returned with two hands full of green, sweet smelling pods—tiny footballs with an umbilicus at one end, surrounded by a stiff crown of tiny leaves. Feijoa, from the tree in the garden, courtesy of our lovely hosts. He cut one in half and scooped out the inside with a spoon: pear and guava. Firm but yielding, aromatic and sweet, a delicately structured lattice infused with tropical juice.