Guanabana Fanta = No

As a PSA, I'd like to start by discussing how not to drink soursop juice.

Last night, we tried to find a geocache around the corner. Tried, and failed. Mike's first unfound cache. My zillionth. Maybe it's for the best - did you know that 75% of all geocaches I have found have since gone belly-up? And the only one that hasn't was recently geojacked? I'm bad luck, I am. (But since there are literally thousands of geocaches within easy driving distance, I figure the sport can take some losses in the interest of me having fun.)

We went on to Sunset and picked up the mystery gift. Oh, another case of drill bits and screws. (It was that or the battery-operated screwdriver, which we also already have. Mike used it to take apart the old laptop last weekend and, amongst other things, clean a few years worth of my hair out of the inside of the fan. Did you know you have to take apart the whole laptop to get to the fan? Motherboard, monitor, everything? Anyway, the screwdriver revealed itself to be crap before he even removed the optical drive.)

After Sunset it was off to Whole Foods to look for dessicated coconut. Or maybe it's spelled desiccated coconut. (Yes, there we go, thanks MW.) Apparently, desiccated coconut is nearly unknown in the States, making it very difficult for expatriate Australians to make the highly desirable "lammies." Mike, having crafted a delicious chutney earlier this week, is on a culinary roll and wants to make Lamingtons, and this means the hunt for unsweetened coconut which is not flaked (as sold at Albertson's) nor medium chopped (as sold at Smith's) nor somewhat medium chopped (as sold at Whole Foods, it turned out), but desiccated, is afoot.

The only thing we ended up getting at Whole Foods was some reasonably priced soursop juice. Soursop? What's that?

Creamy? Sweet? Exotic? Sure, let's give it a go! This will be fun! (And it meant we could leave with something after mooning over everything else.)

Then it was to Smith's for regular groceries. It being after 10 pm, it was frustratingly dark in produce and frozen foods, but this was good because I got to say, "See? SEE? You can't see!" Also, no one called me "honey" or "sweetie" on this trip, so I don't hate Smith's quite as much now, but they're still on probation.

(Mike doesn't understand why it bothers me that they call me those names. Okay, it's one thing when a truck stop waitress does it. It's another when the Smith's cashier does it because you're standing there waiting for the "Skip Bagging" option to come up on the self-checkout screen, like it does at Albertson's, so you don't have to load five cases of water onto the tiny bagging platform, and she apparently thinks you're just a stupid child, standing there balancing a case of water, staring at all the pretty colours on the screen for no good reason. What kind of self-respecting self-checkout doesn't let you Skip Bagging? Anyway, there's the world-weary beehive hairdo use of "honey" and "sweetie," and then there's the other kind, and that other kind makes me GRRR. But this trip was condescension-free, so...)

After settling in awhile at home, about to miss our "swim" for the second night in a row, I decided to try the soursop juice. (I'm currently protesting pool trips as "the daily swim" has mutated into "let's bob in the pool for sixty seconds then start whinnying about how great the hot tub would be." Hot tubs are a complete novelty to Mike, and it's fun to see how excited he gets, but I need more time being weightless in the pool, playing astronaut and mermaid and tea party. The swimming pool is like foreplay for the hot tub, okay? It's supposed to be the longest part of the experience. Or so I used to read in Cosmo.)

Well, the soursop juice smelled kind of icky. Not durian icky, which I can only imagine because I'm too terrified of their reputed smell to actually try one, but just off-putting. The taste of the soursop, though? Hmm, nice. Creamy, tangy, yeah, it's good. It just smells a little like someone chopped off their toe then accidentally left it under their bed for a couple of days, and you're down the hall, thinking you smell something bad, but you're not sure.

So then I get this idea. It's partly the juice manufacturer's fault, because on the carton they suggest mixing the soursop juice with Sprite for a "refreshing" drink. We didn't have Sprite, but we had some orange Fanta left over from the Disney trip, so I reckoned, hey, let's mix it up.

It was so pretty! Like a clear glass of dusky sunset. I couldn't wait to take a picture, but it was too enticing to wait to drink.

And of course I was so pleased with the name: Guanabana Fanta! (Guanabana is another name for soursop.) It was just so much fun to say: "Look, I made a Guanabana Fanta." "Do you want a Guanabana Fanta?" "How's your Guanabana Fanta - would you prefer extra creamy or extra fizzy?" "Yes, I invented the Guanabana Fanta one summer when I was a teacher on break. And no, I had no idea it would lead to this kind of international success! But, you know, it was worth it to give up my teaching career to jet around the world and lecture about this drink sensation - Guanabana Fanta!"

A little bit later, with a barf towel cuddled up to my chest, whisper-moaning to Mike to Google up what non-diabetics do when having a hyperglycemic episode, I no longer loved my Guanabana Fanta. I eventually crawled halfway down the steps to the darkest corner of the carpeted landing the way an ailing kitten might get under the porch to die, and remained there for an hour, too nauseated and faint to stand, almost hating the Guanabana Fanta and its terrible orange beauty, but not quite hating it because I was surely about to die, and it's probably bad to die with such negativity in your heart. I settled for making hangover-like promises to NEVER drink or even eat ANYthing again. Never. Hook up the tubes and the portable IV - the years of ingesting by mouth are over.

Now it's the next day and I feel much better, but I wanted to share this with the world because, you know, soursop juice is nice. And so is Orange Fanta. Individually. I'd hate to see anyone else end up swearing off either of these products for the rest of time because there was a terrible accident in the lab one night.

We've already lost The Good NyQuil for its role in meth. Let not your own curious experimentation with the perilously high fructosity of Guanabana Fanta lead to an eventual ban on either of its ingredients. Thank you.

Comments

[Heather in PA]

Oh, goodness. I hope you're feeling better. Are you sure it was the combo that brought on such misery? Could it have been a reaction to the soursop itself? In any case, I salute your intrepid culinary experimentation and award you the Purple Spoon for your injuries.

You might try looking in the international/ethnic section of your grocery store for the desiccated coconut. Wherever Indian or Thai food products are found in Vegas. (in my grocery store, that's also where the CHEAP spices are found. Cumin, curry, cinnamon sticks - super cheap in big bags as opposed to the expensive little jars found in the spice/baking section a few aisles over. Why is that?!)

And if you find it, I want to try the lammies. sounds delish!!!!

[Shari]

I wave my Purple Spoon in spangly sugar-shocked glee - huzzah!

The desiccated coconut hasn't made it to the international aisles or even the local international market, but an Indian/Thai grocery? That's genius! Brilliant idea - thanks!