If you heard the third hour today, then you heard Dennis and me talking about my "Honey Journal." I have fallen in love with honey (who doesn't love honey?) in a serious way and have decided to write down my impressions. If I don't write something down, I forget it. That's why I've kept a daily journal of my life for twenty-seven years. Most of it is very mundane, but I know what I was doing on March 23, 1994, for instance. That's kinda cool. I even have the entry of the first day I met Dennis.
So, today the honey journal begins. I'm going to catalogue my current collection over the next few weeks and as I add new honeys, I'll add more entries. I don't exactly know why I'm putting this on our show blog other than that Dennis asked me to and it sounds like fun.
Your own entries and impressions are, of course, welcome.
The first entry is from honey that Susie and I bought in Papua New Guinea in January of this year. Since customs in both the US and Australia are so strict about agricultural products and since packaging in PNG is not exactly high-tech, we were worried that our container would be confiscated. But it sailed through without any problem.
One final note: I won't buy any honey that's flavored. It has to be raw, unfiltered and untreated. Just the flowers, the bees and God.
Honey Journal -- Entry 1
Name: Lufa Natural Honey
Country: Papua New Guinea
Purchased: January 13, 2007 in Alotau, PNG
Color: Very dark. Coffee bean brown.
Flavor: Strong molasses taste, so much so that it one could mistake for molasses if one didn’t know it was honey. Hint of coffee, too.
Consistency: Medium plus.
Fragrance: Forest primeval, earthy, molasses. Not subtle at all.
Cost: 18 Kina
Notes: Makes you think of robust bees working in a dense jungle. I imagine it was all they could do to make it back to the hive with their heavy loads of pollen. You couldn't eat this honey every day. It's too rich.
This honey comes with a lot of memories. Alotau is a small coastal town in southwestern PNG banked against dark green mountains. Wild banana trees grow everywhere. The people are very friendly and very curious. When they smile, which is often, they reveal their stained red teeth. They mix lime with a certain local nut and chew the mixture. The nut turns red in their mouths.
Okay, since you insist, here's one story from our PNG trip, part of our wonderful Prager listener cruise this past January. It was very hot the day we were there. Susie and I ducked into a store to take a break from the sun. Susie took the opportunity to reapply some sun screen. She has very pale skin and burns easily. Two boys stared at her transfixed as she slathered herself. I looked at them, gestured to Susie and said "have you ever seen anyone that white before?" They vigorously shook their heads, no. And we all started to laugh. Susie and I saw something exotic that day and so did they.