Paua

On Saturday night Eric and I went over to Phil and Annemarie's house for dinner and games. Phil happens to be the branch president. He is crazy about games, and he's a big-time trash-talker. He kind of reminds me of Andrew. Because here he is rubbing it in that you lost a die, yet he only has one left. I guess if you take it seriously it could be really annoying. But we were warned, so we felt justified and just dishing it right back. It was a fun time!

Phil and Annemarie have three really cute kids. One of them is four, and his name is Jared. Yes, stories are coming.

This is paua (pronounced pow-uh). It grows in the ocean. (In America it's called abalone.) You can go diving for it. Just pick it up, and if you are fast enough, the little muscle-like creatures won't attach themselves to the nearest rock. Paua are useful for two things: one, the meat is very tasty (or so I'm told) and two, their shells are really beautiful. Somebody in the household had gone out and caught a couple of paua and placed them in a bowl for later consumption. These paua were still alive, and of course this was very fascinating to the little boys, especially Jared. Phil brought the bowl of paua over to me so that I could see them, and they happened to be very active at the time, moving around quite a bit. It's rather difficult to explain how they move since they live in shells and are invertebrates but the best description is that they were flexing.

Anyway, cute little Jared was touching the paua and encouraging me to do the same. As you might expect, I was not keen to touch the black, gooey thing. So, I told Jared that I really didn't want to, and he told me, "But he likes it." Jared continued to enumerate to me all the wonders of paua, how yummy they are and such. This was funny because when he first showed them to me, I asked him if he had ever had it, but he said that he hadn't. As the conversation continued, Jared told me how to prepare paua. "Scoop it out of the shell. Put it in a pan. Turn on the stove so it gets hot. Let the paua get hot in the pan until it is cooked, " and so on. The funny thing was, when I asked how to cook it, my question was directed to a grown-up and I pretty much missed the answer, except I think it can involve coconut milk.

And, the best of all. When I asked Jared what his favorite food was, he assured me, of course, that it was paua.

I don't think that story translate very well written down, but this kid was darn funny! And cute. And, his mom told me that he has had paua, and she's pretty sure it wasn't his favorite food.