Typical Tropical Fruits

It's the International Week at Sienna's preschool. They are celebrating the privileged life of multi-culturalism in our community.

Today, each kid is supposed to bring in some kind of food or fruits, typical of their cultures for everyone else to share. I took Sienna to a Chinese super market last night and got her star fruits and longans. These are two of many tropical fruits that I grew up eating in a coastal city in south east China, except the star fruits were much smaller and the longans were much much bigger...

I am sure the star fruits will amaze the kids. The stars are always part of their play and imagination at this age. Isn't it magical that something of that magical shape is so juicy and sweet to taste?!

I am a bit worried about longans, so-called "dragon's eyes". I hope the kids here won't swallow the cores or get them stuck in the throat. Sienna, on the other hand, was trained very early on to pick fish bone out of her mouth when she encounters one. When the doctor asked me to cut a grape in quarters, I asked her to take the whole and bite them into parts right away. One of the things we do differently in our culture anyways. When it comes to processing the food, we use our teeth and tongue equally as the hands.