Pear & Passionfruit Waffles

So what did we do with our first batch of vegan yeasted waffles? Why, just what any person who had impulse-bought a strange array of fruit during a late-night supermarket run would do: top them with thinly sliced pears and impossibly delicious passionfruit! And then a nice little drizzle of maple syrup, of course.

Laura was kind enough to photograph the process & results:

Recommended serving: with a hot mug of tea, on the makeshift "bed"/blanket nest on which you have just had a very lovely sleepover.

Passionfruit is my new...well, passion (sorry), and has been since I visited Costa Rica in March. The passionfruit there is big, maybe mango-sized, with yellow-orange skin. During our one supermarket trip, our host suggested we scoop up every last passionfruit in the place. "There's no way we'll eat that many," I said, stupidly, "I don't even like them." This statement was based on my one previous experience, during which a friend and I had appreciated the incomparable flavor but been put off by the bizarre texture and vomit-like appearance of the fruit we'd purchased (it was years ago but looking back on it I think we simply got a bad fruit). So, tragically, we did not buy out the passionfruit supply in that little market in Lanas, and I regretted it deeply for the rest of the trip, because that fruit turned out to be everyone's favorite snack. Sweet but tangy, the juice ran down our chins as we crunched the seeds and delighted in the strange little pockets of flesh surrounding them. I can't imagine I'll ever taste that again without feeling like I'm right back in the jungle, lying in a hammock & laughing.

Of course, the passionfruit I bought on a late-night supermarket run here in Michigan last night is not quite the same. From New Zealand, it is much smaller, maybe the size of a typical lime, and purple on the outside. I would not ordinarily buy produce from the other side of the planet, but the hope of tasting a little bit of Costa Rica here at home was too strong to deny. Indeed, the flavor is reminiscent of the fruits I enjoyed there, though the texture is not as enjoyable -- it is quite apparent that these specimens were bred to be shipped around the world and stored, not for superior flavor and mouthfeel.

Of all the delectable tropical fruits I adore, passionfruit may just be my favorite. If you see it around it's worth picking up -- the flavor certainly deserves to be experienced. If you can't find the fruits where you live I do recommend the Haagen-Dazs passionfruit ice cream or the incredible CocoaBella passionfruit chocolates. These are the things tiding me over until I can return to Costa Rica.