Of Mangoes and Andretti

I knew in my gut that I wasn't going to make it to the movies tonight.

I'd put it off and put it off and tonight might be the last night the The Separation, the great (by all accounts) Iranian film that won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film plays in St. Pete.

Something told me not to go, and I honestly for one fleeting moment thought "bomb scare". Which made me more determined to get off my couch and get down there.

Only to run into... the Grand Prix. Oh yes... I'd forgotten all about it. I really should read the Tampa Bay Times more often, I suppose.

Anyway... parking, when you could find it, was $10. I'd already be using a credit card since I had exactly $9.05 in my checking account, and there's no way I could justify putting a parking charge on my card. There's a recession, damnit! Or... is there? I can't remember. I'm guessing there is if I have a bank balance that I haven't had since my early 20s... so yeah... recession it is.

I hemmed and hawed, not wanting to head back home. Then genius struck - I'd make the gauava/mango bread pudding recipe I'd come across in Vida Vegan earlier this morning.

Hmmm... where to find guava paste, though. I was on 30th Ave., when I remembered the Latin market by the thrift store. Three blocks away! Closed. Never mind... I had a plan. Switching over to the Latin station, I turned right and headed toward El Maguey, up on 66th and 54th Ave. I knew they stayed open late and they were sure to have it. I could picture their wooden fruit stand out front, full of huge avocados, sunburnt plantains, mangoes and bags of cilantro. I could smell the empanadas. Oh.. this bread pudding was going to be GOOD.

No luck. They were open, and very nice about it, but they didn't have any guava paste. Nor did they have any mangoes.

I figured that the Publix by my house was big enough that it would have what I needed, but there's something... um, lacking in letting fate throw you for a loop, grabbig the sails and bobbing off to guava bread pudding land, only to have to stop at the same grocery store where you buy toilet paper. This was no adventure; it was turning into an errand.

Just then, I passed another Publix, one I'd never noticed before. Surely they would have it too, especially since they were even closer to Pinellas Park and Kenneth City - home to a sizable Latin community.

At this point, I'm holding on to my adventure by a thread. I walk into the door and my jaw does LITERALLY does a Chris Traeger drop. Right in front of me is a display for fruit pastes. Not guava, but cherry. Fig. Pear. Apricot. Quince. WTF? Are we back in the 1800s and no one has refrigeration anymore. Why is, hmmm.. Rutherford & Meyer bringing this stuff back?

I walk past; determined to stick to my plan. But.... tack, matey... there's no guava paste that I recognize on the shelf. See... I learned all I know about guava paste while working at a Cuban market all through high school. And I didn't see the Goya roundish block. Admittedly, that's ALL I know of guava paste, but that's neither here nor there.

I grabbed a mango, a container of pear paste (still doesn't even sound like food) and hightailed it out of there.

Talk about adventure... I was getting ready to cook with an ingredient straight out of Little Women! Preserved limes, be damned. I had pear paste in my bag.

I've got 40-45 minutes for this baby to cook; I'll report back after I've tasted it.

Oh, and if you've ever wondered what pear paste tastes like; it's a sophisticated version of a gummy bear. No neon-ish, gasoline taste. More like a subdued gummy bear in a tuxedo, tasting slightly of tannic wine.