Whenever I come home, my mom, like most moms, wants to make sure I get to eat all the things I like to eat, whether that’s food that’s homemade or store-bought. One of the things she decided to get me this time around was a big whole durian. I actually didn’t grow up eating durian and only got introduced to it as an adult. After having a literally rotten durian experience in Cambodia four years ago, I always feel a bit wary trying the fruit now. But if there’s one thing I can trust my mom to do, it’s to know when durian is good. This afternoon, she showed me how to cut it open in the most optimal way and slice out all the big pockets of durian meat. I was so intrigued by it because I’d never seen anyone do this before, so I even recorded her cutting up part of it. I helped cut part of it, but mid-way through, my mom got slightly possessive, and she insisted she cut up the rest of it. It’s an extremely prickly thus painful fruit to hold, so you have to hold a towel between you and the fruit when gripping it to cut it. This is my mom’s labor of love.

While eating the fresh durian with vanilla ice cream tonight, Chris and I looked up all the nutrition facts about this fruit. While we initially scared my dad by telling him that durian is the one fruit that actually has dietary cholesterol content, he was pleasantly surprised to learn that this “king of fruit” is very high in fiber, potassium, vitamin C, manganese, thiamin, riboflavin, folate, copper, and magnesium. I suppose the high caloric content of durian is now worth it. 🙂