My fascination with Palm trees continues. With Palm Sunday arriving this weekend, I have been exploring the Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera). There are many of these trees on the property owned by the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park in California. One of my fondest memories is taking my daughter on a Safari drive through this park when she was young. We were visiting my sister who lived in Los Angeles at the time. My daughter was thrilled and a little scared to feed the giraffes carrots. They would come up to the safari truck and with their prehensile tongues they would scoop them out of our hands.
The fruit of the Date Palm tree are called Medjool dates. I bought some the other day at one of our local grocery stores. I have eaten them in salads at restaurants, but I have never bought a box of them to consume at home. We have been eating them today, and I can definitely say that they are delicious. My plan is to chop some of them up to put into a pound cake I hope to make this weekend. I enjoy experimenting. One of my recent goals this year is to try new foods and experiment with different recipes. I am currently focused on the Medjool date.
The dates I bought were grown in the Bard Valley of California. I had to research the name Bard since I attended an elementary school in California in 3rd and 4th grade by the name of Richard Bard. Curiously I don’t ever remember eating whole dates when I was young and lived in California. This is a shame since I could have discovered them long ago.
If I end up making the cake this weekend, I will post a picture. It would be a nice addition to a Palm Sunday brunch.
I made the Vanilla Sour Creme Pound Cake and added chopped medjool dates. I baked it this morning. Now all I need to do is make the brunch tomorrow morning to go with it. It will be simple.
movingforwardslowly 