When I tell you where I ate my 10 best durians of the year, I’m telling you a story about me. “Best durian” are deeply personal. They’re where I was and what I was doing and what was important to me when I ate them. This post, The 10 Best Durian of 2017 is essentially […]
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Fresh Durian in Darwin at Rapid Creek Market, Australia
I’m a sucker for farmers markets. They’re like my version of massive shoe sales, and I just can’t resist them. I love the crowds and festive atmosphere, the music, the million things to look at and touch and consider buying. When there’s the chance of finding durian, I’m hopeless. Darwin happens to have no less […]
Darwin Durian Farm: Australia’s Top End
What do crocodiles and durians have in common? Nothing really, until we found out that this Darwin durian farm is currently the biggest in Australia, and it’s just a few miles from one of the most croc-infested rivers in the world. During the durian season, the orchard supplies Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide with fresh, Australian […]
Durian Trellis with Peter Salleras — Beating Cyclones With Smart Technology
Once upon a time in a very exotic place, there was an evil djinn that lived on a mountain overlooking a village. Occasionally, the creature roamed around, knocking on the roofs of houses with children. If it knocked, the parents had to choose one child to set outside for the djinn to eat, or he […]
Rob and I Survive Our First Cyclone – Some Durians Don’t | Photos of Cooktown, Australia
A few weeks ago a friend posted a photo of a weather map on facebook. It was a beautiful assortment of colors, whirling blues, greens and pinks. It caught my eye as I whizzed down my feed trying to catch up with what everybody’s been up to. With my book, The Durian Guide to Thailand, […]
Durio Macrantha: A Durian For Disbelievers | Cairns, Australia
With Mom and Dad in town, we’ve spent a lot more time cuddling kangaroos and searching futilely for crocodiles in every river, creek, or small body of water than eating durian. But we had one more orchard visit scheduled — and a really special one at that. On their last day here in Australia, the […]
Feast of the Senses, Australia Fruit Festival
The Feast of the Senses is the biggest shindig in the tropical Australia fruit world. It takes place on the Cassowary Coast, a rainy region just south of Cairns. The sleepy green hills hide hundreds of rare and exotic fruits tucked in and around rolling fields of sugarcane and banana farms. We had a good […]
Mom and Dad Take Their First Bite Of Durian
As anyone who has been following our Facebook page has probably noticed, my Mom and Dad are in town. They flew all the way from I-Promise-You’ve-Never-Heard-Of-It, Oregon, to hang out with us in Australia for a couple weeks and get their first taste of durian. Really I think they just wanted to see wallabies and […]
Rusty’s Market | Cairns, Australia
Rusty’s Market is the sprawling outdoor produce market in downtown Cairns. On weekends it hums like a hive of bees under under the high roof as people jostle through the narrow aisles, stepping on each others toes to pick through pile of mangoes or stop to grab a sample of dragonfruit. It’s got all the […]