Ten Reasons why I like living in Rurutu: #4

Passion-fruit. The vine is native to South America, but is grown broadly across the world, in Rurutu it grows a bit like a weed. It has attractive flowers and beautiful purple fruits with orange pulp.

It's now the season and, despite the recent cyclone, our vine at the back of the garden is laden with fruit. This year it's a bumper crop, I've already tried my hand at sorbet (to be recommended) and passion-fruit butter (I think it's an improvement on the jelly I made last year). But what I really need to go with the passion-fruit butter is cheesecake..... Alas, it's one of the many deserts that you just can't find here in Rurutu, due to a serious shortage of cream cheese!!!

Cheese

Funny as it may seem, dairy products are one of the things I miss the most here in Rurutu. We don't have fresh milk on the island, though there is a dairy in Tahiti. We only have UHT or dried cow milk (of course we have coconuts aplenty) and until recently our choice in cheeses was mostly limited to processed cheddar (a weird plastic-like substance called 'cheesdale' ), laughing cow and smelly french cheeses imported for Christmas. However, since our new 'superstore' opened in 'town', the competition between stores and the market for things exotic has really grown. For the last month or so there has been a reliable source of a mild cheddar from NZ; OK so it's not an aged sharp welsh cheddar, but it makes my heart sing, just to have a little bit of cheddar cheese in the fridge......When I tried to communicate my happiness at having some cheddar cheese to the woman working the till I got some amused and slightly incomprehending grins (crazy gringo), I guess it'd be a bit like finding tinned taro at Tesco's in Ystrad Mynach!