A Date with My Man and Mangoes

My husband and I took a little day trip (sans children) to Pine Island. It is the largest barrier island on the west coast of Florida. I had recently read an article in a local magazine about mangoes on Pine Island and told my husband I would like to visit the island and get some for ourselves.

I like mangoes. I had never tasted them before we moved to S.W. Florida and was introduced to them by a new friend. She has a few mango trees in her yard and shared some of the fruit with my family. I have to interject something here...where I grew up, some people would call green peppers, mangoes. I never understood that. Real mangoes are an exotic, tropical, juicy and delicious fruit.

Before mango shopping, we had lunch at Capt'n Con's. I had the fried shrimp basket ( I cast counting Weight Watcher's Points to the four winds) and my husband had the shrimp and flounder basket. I tasted the flounder...delicious! The restaurant is on the water, so we had a nice view while eating our lunch.

My husband and I saw a sign on the side of the road which read, tree-ripened mangoes for sale. We turned, followed the road and found the house of said mangoes. The lady came out of her home and took us to her backyard where she had boxes filled with all kinds of mangoes. She said on her two acre lot she had over a hundred varieties of mangoes. I bought two boxes and came home with several pieces of fruit.

After purchasing the mangoes we continued to drive around Pine Island. It is a beautiful island filled with many palm tree nurseries. I would love to have some of them in my yard. I spotted this spotted octopus. It was outside an art gallery/framing shop. I could not resist the photographic opportunity.

We headed for home. Upon arrival, I washed my many mangoes and started to cut up the ripe ones. I still have a few mangoes that are ripening so I am going to give these to a friend. She makes the best mango pound cake! I think I will start googling some mango recipes...it is a good thing my family and I like mango..I have quite a lot of it in my freezer!