Five Minute Mango, Papaya, and Basil Gelato

I think maybe the title of this recipe is slightly misleading, depending on your grocery store access and freezer habits. If you regularly buy frozen fruit or freeze your own, then this is a five minute recipe. If you only have fresh mangoes and papaya to hand right now, this is a twenty-four hour-plus-five minute recipe. So this gelato is the reason you should become the kind of person who always has frozen fruit to hand. Or it's the reward for already being that person.

Seaweed, Ginger, and Carrot Salad

After a recent knee injury, I have started taking swimming lessons. Until last October, I was a keen long-distance runner. Then I had quite a bad injury that put me on crutches for eight weeks. (I wrote about my first social outing with crutches here.) I'm still not able to run, though I have managed to cycle three times in the last few months.

On my physiotherapist's advice, I needed to take up a sport that has a lower impact on my knees. I never learned to swim as a child, so I have just started a series of lessons.

Mango, Banana, and Coconut Loaf (Sugar-Free)

I first ate mangoes in Mexico as a high school student. They were ripe and slightly squishy, and faintly smelled of pine. Someone showed me how to slice off a slab from the side, and scoop out the flesh with a teaspoon. The juice dribbled down my chin and arms, falling in fat, orange drops from my elbow to the dusty ground below.


There were ten of us high schoolers on an outreach project near Tijuana. We spent the week running kids' programs and hosting evening gatherings at local churches. And every day at breakfast I ate a juicy mango. I savoured every bite of them. I used my teeth to gnaw off the stringy bits of flesh around the huge seed.

Mango and Ginger Smoothie

This was a nice, cool, creamy drink for a summer afternoon. I was home alone, working and puttering around. I paused for a break, drank this smoothie, and sat on the couch, gazing on the sparkling sea outside.