At the moment it is all jockeying for position, the Governor General has to be informed that there is a group that has sufficient majority to govern, he then gives 4 days notice of a meeting to decide the Prime Minister, after which, if everything goes well, Parliament can then be called to open.
By the list if MPs so far, it could be interesting when the PM is announced again. The 2006 riots occurred because of an unpopular decision, it took 4 days to call another vote for PM and most of Chinatown, and a few hotels and Central Honiara shops were burnt out before it was resolved.
It’s been 35*C for the past week, and only a couple of nights with rain, the air is thick and damp, everything is limp with the humidity, I’ve been trying futilely to get my washing dry, the best it does is feel not damp, but not dry either.
I bought a couple of coconuts this morning at Kukum Market, $1 each, fairly good sized ones, full of liquid as well. So, for those asking, here is the simple method of opening a coconut.
One coconut, end up, with the three eyes.
I use a cork screw, you can use a small sharp knife, but after stitching my thumb together last year, I use a cork screw. Pierce the largest eye, not that it matters, it is just the easiest to pop out.
Ten seconds and done, you can get an idea of how much meat is in the coconut by the thickness of the plug that comes out. This looks about 10mm.
Drain the juice out, this is NOT coconut milk or cream, it is nice to drink cold, I use it to cook rice with. I got 400 ml from this coconut.
Now for the fun part. For purposes of the photo, I had it sitting on the bench, trying to hold the camera, a cleaver and a coconut only works if you have 3 arms, and I took my camera tripod back to New Zealand. Normally I hold the coconut in one hand, and rap the husk sharply with the back of the cleaver. You don’t need to hit very hard, I’ve seen the girls at work use a butter knife to tap all the way around, and it just falls open.
One sharp tap, and it is split open, well, ok split mostly open, I had to turn it around a bit and give it one more tap.
There you have 2 halves of coconut, with a large amount of meat in each. The locals pop it out with a bushknife, I’ve tried and tried, but I guess you have to start young to get the right technique. My method is to crack each half again a few times to break it into smaller pieces, the prise the meat off with a BLUNT round bladed knife, as in the picture.
Broken pieces, and one half to go.
Wedge the tip of the blade into an edge between the meat and shell, wiggle a few times and the meat pops off.
To grate it, I don’t have a coconut scraper, so I peel the brown skin off with a vegetable peeler, then use a kitchen grater to grate it into threads. From there, you can either, dry the threads, and keep in an airtight jar, or use fresh on a banana and chilli sambal, or with curry etc, or make coconut cream.
I ended up with a one litre jar of dried coconut from the one in the pictures, I still have another one to prepare tomorrow.
Things to watch for, always shake the coconut before buying, you should be able to hear the liquid inside. If not, and the eyes have not started sprouting, try another one. If the eyes have sprouted, to a large double leaf size, inside you will find a spongy endosperm, which is really excellent eating, crunchy and sweet with a huge amount of juice.
The husk can go into the compost heap, it will take a while to rot down, the hair will rot quickly, the actual shell could take a year or more though.
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