Lift Up Your Hearts!

I know you're all—one or two of you, anyway—waiting with bated breath for the next installment of the Hawaiian Adventure.  I'm working on it.  But it's not going to happen tonight, so instead you get a quick story of today's enjoyable shopping trip.

Yes.  I did just use "enjoyable" and "shopping" in the same sentence.

Thirty-plus years ago we visited Brazil.  One of the delights of foreign travel is the opportunity to expand one's taste in food, and that trip introduced us to, among other treasures, jabuticaba jelly, Antarctica Guaraná, and suco de maracujá sem açúcar.  The last is passion fruit juice, without sugar, and was my staple breakfast drink every day I could get it.

It is hard to find passion fruit juice here, and when I do, it's always sweetened.  Our local Albertsons did start stocking plain, frozen passion fruit purée a few years ago, so when, in my new-found enthusiasm for smoothies, I decided that passion fruit flavor was just what I needed, I turned to them.

Alas, they no longer carry it.  But the willing-to-be-helpful clerk suggested we try a Bravo Supermarket.  We have several nearby food stores, but Bravo is not one of them.  Research, however, revealed one not far from our church, so this morning we ventured in.

Success!  We came home with not one but three different brands of passion fruit purée:  one from Colombia, one from Ecuador, and one from the Dominican Republic. Mmmm—smoothies tomorrow!

Finding a long-lost love is enough in itself to take the sting out of shopping, but Bravo did us one better by being such an interesting store.  Even if it were closer, it wouldn't do for everyday use, because it's a small store with not much general selection.  But it abounds in what I'd call, for lack of better information. Hispanic foods.  The produce section was amazing, with half a dozen different kinds of bananas, and dozens of fruits and vegetables I know not of.

I look forward to other after-church excursions in the future.