Commander Toad: A guest post

The following post was written by our mother, and posted on our blog for your reading pleasure:

In keeping with the frequent botanical theme that appears here, and because it is that time of year when Jews eat a “New Fruit”, I will post about when I bought a Chayote in that capacity in lieu of a pomegranate, star fruit, persimmon, etc.

No one in the farmers’ market was able to answer my question as to how to tell if the chayote was ripe (my fault I suppose, for not being able to communicate fluently in Cantonese or Spanish or Pantomime) so I took it home, placed it on the dining room table, and waited for it to look ripe.

At first, the Chayote bore an uncanny resemblance to Commander Toad (© Jane Yolen) with his cheerful toothless smile and smooth green complexion. Even more so after we added the raisin eyes (for a sweet new year, and all that.) So of course we named it “Commander Toad”.

Some time passed. Commander Toad‘s smug look started to look a little discourteous. We couldn’t tell if he was licking his lips or trying to make a rude noise.

Later. Were those wrinkles and age spots an indication that he was finally becoming ripe? Actually, it was moot at this point. We could no longer eat him anyway - he felt like a member of the family by now. Really, there was no reason at all for him to stick his tongue out at us.

Eventually the Commander became quite elderly and spent most of his time gumming asparagus and complaining about his children.

I think we had to make do with a Carambola that year.