For Valentine's Day I gave Desert Boy a coconut. He's been seeing them a lot on the survival shows he loves, and now he had his chance to hold one, drink from one, and taste one. He was beyond excited, but I gave it to him in the morning, so he had to wait till after school. Ah, the anticipation! He did get to shake it and hear the water sloshing around in it before he took off.
The first step was to unwrap it and read the label and find out where it was from. I have to admit I didn't think of that part--Desert Boy did. Our coconut was from the Dominican Republic, and we had to do a little searching to find the island out in the Caribbean. I had fun imagining the sandy beaches, warm ocean waves lapping at those beaches, plentiful sunshine with coconut palms providing a little shade. Okay, the coconut may not come from an idyllic beach, but it sure does bring to mind such a place!
We found the eyes of the coconut and tried to stick a straw through one. Nope--that didn't work! The eyes are a little toucher than that, so we pierced it with scissors and a knife.
Desert Boy stuck a straw in and started drinking the coconut water. After a long sip, he made quite a face--it wasn't that good! I gave it a try and liked it. So then he had to try it again and decided it might be okay.
Then came opening the coconut. I should have looked it up on the Internet, as
this WikiHow site has many ways to open a coconut. I didn't have much success, so when my husband came home he attacked it with a saw and got it open.
Ah, success! We broke off little pieces of coconut--delicious!
Even after eating the flesh out of the coconut, Desert Boy wasn't done with it. Here's one of his art projects. I think we'll have a couple more in the next few days.
So our first coconut was quite a fun experience. We'll probably try it again sometime.
Do you have experience with coconuts? What do you recommend doing with them?
Gilligan!
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