Tropical Rainbow Dessert -- The Island You Carry Home

Bayamón, week two. The last week of the trip.

Sunday I took the ferry to Vieques with Marisol. Her son Pablo — who is forty-nine and runs a surf school on the east coast now — drove us to the ferry terminal at 5 AM. Vieques in late February is the most Vieques you can get: warm but not hot, empty but not abandoned, the beaches long and white and nearly alone. We swam. Two women in their fifties and seventies, Marisol and me, floating in the Caribbean in the last week of February, while Hartford was under eight inches of snow. Eduardo sent me a photo of the driveway. I did not send one back.

Pablo took us to lunch at a place in Esperanza where his friend is the chef. The mofongo was — mi amor, I hate to say it, but the mofongo was excellent. Maybe better than mine. I am not going to tell David. I am not going to tell Eduardo. I am telling you because you will not repeat it. The garlic was raw and crushed by hand. The chicharrón was still warm when it went into the mortar. The pilón — the wooden mortar itself — was older than me, darkened by thirty years of garlic, and the wood's seasoning was half the flavor. I ate two plates and asked for the recipe. The chef laughed and said, "Doña, you know there is no recipe. You just cook it."

Which is the truest thing anyone said to me all week. There is no recipe. You just cook it. And you learn to cook it from someone who learned to cook it from someone who learned to cook it, and the chain is the recipe and the cook is the recipe and the pilón is the recipe and the island is the recipe. I cannot write this down. I write it down anyway.

Wednesday morning I flew home. The suitcase weighed fifty-three pounds and I paid the overweight fee without blinking because inside was three pounds of culantro seeds, four bottles of Bayamón vanilla, two pounds of coffee, sazón, and a pilón — my own, new, mine, purchased at the market in Plaza del Mercado from a man whose father carved pilones for fifty years before him. The pilón is for David. I will give it to him at Easter. It is for his professional kitchen in Brooklyn. The chain continues. The wood will season. In thirty years David's mofongo will be the mofongo of the chef in Esperanza. This is the inheritance.

Eduardo picked me up at Bradley at 11 PM Wednesday. It was twelve degrees. He had brought my winter coat because I had forgotten to take it off the coat rack when I left, and I had flown home from Puerto Rico in a cardigan. He said, "I knew you would forget." I said, "You are a very good husband." He said, "I know." Marriage. Wepa.

I came home with a suitcase full of culantro and vanilla and a new pilón, and I came home with something harder to name — the color of the water at Vieques in late February, the way the light sat on everything. I cannot reproduce the mofongo. I will not try, not yet. But I can put the colors of that week on a table, and so the first Sunday back in Hartford, with eight inches of snow on Eduardo’s car and my winter coat finally back on its hook, I made this. Tropical. Bright. Layered the way memory layers: fruit over fruit over sweetness, the whole thing cool and honest and already tasting like somewhere I want to go back to.

Tropical Rainbow Dessert

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 20 minutes (plus 30 minutes chilling) | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 2 cups fresh mango, peeled and diced (about 2 medium mangoes)
• 2 cups fresh pineapple, cored and diced
• 2 kiwis, peeled, halved lengthwise, and sliced into half-moons
• 1 cup fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
• 1 cup mandarin orange segments (from about 3 mandarins), membranes removed
• 1 cup full-fat coconut cream, chilled overnight
• 2 tablespoons honey or agave nectar, divided
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1/4 teaspoon lime zest
• 3 tablespoons toasted unsweetened coconut flakes
• Fresh mint leaves, for garnish

Instructions

1. Make the lime dressing. In a small bowl, whisk together the lime juice, lime zest, and 1 tablespoon of the honey or agave until combined. Set aside.
2. Whip the coconut cream. Open the chilled can of coconut cream and scoop the thick solids into a medium bowl, leaving any liquid behind. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon honey. Using a hand mixer or whisk, beat until smooth and softly whipped, about 2 minutes. Refrigerate until ready to assemble.
3. Dress the fruit. Combine the mango, pineapple, kiwi, strawberries, and mandarin segments in a large bowl. Drizzle the lime dressing over the fruit and toss gently to coat. Taste and adjust sweetness if needed.
4. Layer the dessert. In a trifle dish, large glass bowl, or individual serving glasses, create the rainbow layers: start with mango, then pineapple, then strawberries, then mandarin segments, then kiwi, letting each color show through the sides of the vessel.
5. Top and finish. Spoon the whipped coconut cream over the top of the layered fruit. Scatter the toasted coconut flakes evenly over the cream and tuck in a few fresh mint leaves.
6. Chill and serve. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving to allow the flavors to come together. Serve cold, scooping through all the layers into each bowl.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 210 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 34g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 10mg