The Mighty Mango

Nearly coinciding with rainy season in Panama is mango season. Mango season! I remember buying the occasional mango at back in the states: though expensive, it was delicious, as mangos are, but the flavor was nothing like what you experience right off the tree here.

A small start to our mango fortune, but I'm still excited.

We do not have any mango trees in our yard, but they are not hard to find, and we're collecting the fallen fruits whenever we have a chance -- like from the trees in that empty lot or on the golf course. We have friends with a mango tree who said they collected about 50 mangos EVERY DAY during last year's mango season.

I'm setting aside a Mango Day, at which time I will chop up the mangos we've collected and put in the freezer the ones that manage to make it past my mouth. I love smoothies, and I've long been dreaming about mango-banana-pineapple-coconut milk.

If we come into mango riches to the extent that our friends did with their tree, I'm looking forward to trying this recipe for Mango Salsa, which I am sharing here mostly so that I do not lose it:

2 mangos
1 onion
1/2 cucumber
1/2 green pepper
2 garlic gloves (I'll probably use more -- we love our garlic)
1 tablespoon finely chopped jalapeño
2 tablespoons lemon juice
cilantro to taste (a lot, in our case)
sea salt to taste

Dice and combine all ingredients. Get me some crackers and call it lunch.