It's Pawpaw Season!
It’s finally pawpaw season here in Chicago! Let’s talk about this amazing native fruit that most Americans have probably never even tasted.
Three or four years ago, I was sitting on my couch on a Sunday night reading yet another article about pawpaws and how cool they are. I turned to my partner and said: “I’d sure like to taste a pawpaw someday!” No less than two days later, my friend Dr. Liz Anna Kozik messaged me that she had come into possession of a crate of ripe pawpaws, and would I like any. The moral: don’t be afraid to speak your wishes out loud to the cosmos; it just might deliver!
Liz is an amazing illustrator and comics artist (please check out The Comic Book Guide to Growing Food, and buy some of her stickers) and fellow pawpaw enthusiast. She made this lovely little minicomic about pawpaws a few years ago. My copy is a little dinged up, but check it out:
Anyway, Liz brought me a huge bunch of pawpaws, and I removed the seeds and skins, and puréed the pulp. I ended up making some amazing pawpaw curd, and some little baked fruit squares too. The next year I got my hands on more pawpaw, and made a batch of pawpaw jam and canned it! Personally, I don’t recommend baking it – the fruit squares I made were tasty, but didn’t really taste much like pawpaw. The curd and the jam were excellent, though; a great way to make the unique pawpaw flavors last longer.
If you’re in the Chicago area, Orianna’s Orchard sells pawpaws this time of year, and she’ll also sell you pawpaw saplings! And if you do manage to get your hands on some pawpaws, Kentucky State University has a treasure trove of recipes.
Upcoming things:
September 20-October 4: I will be in Yerevan, Armenia to teach a recipe comics workshop! (O_O) Expect many upcoming comics about this trip! A reminder: I will be closing down my online shop while I’m gone, but you can still order things through 9/18. My Threadless shop won’t have any interruptions.
October 11: I will be leading a recipe comics workshop at the Logan Square Library in Chicago!
October 18: I will be exhibiting at SLICE in St. Louis!
October 24: I’ll be in Madison signing books and speaking at the Wisconsin Book Festival!
December 6: I’ll be speaking on a panel and selling books at Sulzer Regional Library in Chicago!
What I’m into lately:
My book club is reading Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir. It’s got some very interesting insights so far, but I have a harder time getting excited about nonfiction, so this one’s been a bit of a slog. I’ve already had to return it to the library and wait for it to become available again, because while I find it difficult to get through, it’s apparently in high demand! It’s a little too perfect that I have such limited time to finish a book about the psychology of scarcity. (>_<)
What Toki’s into lately:
Camping out under the coffee table like it’s his personal Tough Guys Battle Fortress hideout.
