Orchids, Wine and Passion Fruit

Today I went to an orchid festival at the Fruit and Spice Park with my friends Misti, Chris, Eliana and Marc. There were soooo many beautiful orchids there, it was impossible to pick a favorite. The following are some pics I took, none of which are outstanding, but I think you can get an idea of some of what we saw.

Eliana, Chris, Misti and Marc

I ended up buying 3 orchids. One was a Brassavola nodosa (lady-of-the-night) and the other 2, I am embarrassed to say, I don't remember what they were called, only that they are pretty. I also tried some Black Sapote ice cream which was pretty darn good!

After the orchids, we went into Homestead and ate lunch at a nice little Mexican restaurant. Eliana had eaten a Miracle Fruit before we got to the restaurant and it DID make a lime taste sweet, but kind of screwed up her tastebuds for lunch.

Our last stop for the day was Schnebly's Winery out in the Redland's. It's a really nice place and we enjoyed some wine tasting and a tour of the winery. Their wines are notmade of grapes, but of locally grown fruit: carambola, guava, lychee, passion fruit, mango and they are working on a few new flavors, too. My fave is the guava - YUM!

Eliana's favorite was "the wine"....hehehehehe!!

One of the flavors they are playing with...Avocado?!?!?!?

In the distance are rows and rows of passion fruit. I'd never eaten passion fruit before so I bought 4 of them in the store there. Misti told me you just eat the pulp, seeds and all...Marc said "Don't eat them!" and said instead to juice them, which is what I did.

I cut up my 4 passion fruits and scooped out the pulp and seeds.

I dumped the pulpy goo in a blender and added some water...blended well, then strained it...

Added some ice and sugar and, man! That was some GOOD juice! I saved some seeds and will try to grow them so I can make that yummy juice all the time. Funny, they smell a bit like guavas, but taste nothing like them. Good stuff.

Driving home I started smelling the wildfires burning and seeing the smoke the closer I got to home. There were a few ashes flying around when I pulled into the driveway, too. Hope the wind changes direction soon because the constant smell of fire really starts to bug you after a few hours. I'm just glad I don't live any closer to the fires!

So that was my day. I did see one other fantastic thing, but can't talk about it now.... :)