Mom says she doesn't know if they have Christmas pudding in America.
Ok, she just looked it up and there's no sign of anything like it.
They have fruitcake, but that's different, dryer and cakey, with less fruit.
She wanted her proper pudding, soaked in brandy with candied peels, fruits, and boiled not baked.
Christmas pudding is in Coles and Woolworth grocery shopping starts around late October and it is every where. The Lion club fund raising also put out Lion Christmas pudding to sell. It is super sweet and bitter at the same time. See if you like it once you taste it, we love it.
You were right! It's like Queensland. We are extra humid though due to ocean on both sides and swamps / ponds / canals and lots of rain most of the year.
Florida is cooler as you have some light snow, we do not have it. We get bush fires in winter/summer. Storm/hailstorm in spring and super hot summer. When it is hot with high humidity we expect rain/storm/hailstorm. Queensland has its own insurance that specifically target us to insure storm/hail storm in spring time. Only in Queensland.
We do grow a lot here, but due to capitalist interests a lot of our produce doesn't make it to our own stores.
Where it all go? Is there farmer markets over there? Over here some farmers are fed up with the corporate supermarket cutting calling the price so they sell it directly to the consumers at farmer markets or independent fruits&vegetables shops.
I have to start my tomatoes inside in Jan, or in very late summer for an early winter crop. This week we still have the ac on
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I hope your Tomato plants grow. You might think winter in Qld is cool instead of cold and there are many stone fruits in winter. Majority 99% of fresh fruits and vegetables are grown locally. Next time when you visit will not notice fruits/vegetables in jars/can at all because as soon as you enter the shop, the fresh fruits/vegetables are at the front entrance.
There was also a huge orange industry in FL. But the crops have been losing a 20+ year fight with a disease called citrus greening that slowly kills the whole tree.
Next time when I see Orange from the US in the shop I will check where in the US they are from, might be Florida.
We got U-Pick farms over here too, just strawberry mostly and it is a fun activity to do. Oh you will love Qld for sure, so much fresh blue berry/strawberry at this time of year and they are so much that the price drops.
Apparently, we may have gotten a variety that doesn't set fruit. Which a big nursery spread around unwittingly when Finger Limes were first imported and they had an unknown cross pollination.
So we decided to give the trees another season to see if they would finally set fruit... and nothing. They're duds.
I hope your mom's Finger Limes trees fruits.
Finger lime tree is an Australian native plant. In the last 5 years or so it was introduce to the market, but they can only be found in independent or fancy grocery shops, not the 2 big super market like - Coles and Woolworth. I have not buy one as it is not easily found.
Over here citri plants can take a long time to fruit if grown from seeds, that is the reason of many of citric plants are from grafting, they fruits much earlier.
Queensland? I'm guessing, not asking Mom
We spent a month in Queensland when I was a kid, and my uncle still lives there. My strongest memory is the roofs of the houses all being the same color.
I have not noticed about the colour of the roof. I know that they come in sort of dark red mostly. Now you mention it, I will take note
I am in Brisbane, Queensland. The Bananas state and its famous slogan "Beautiful One Day, Perfect the Next". Qld is the sugarcane state as well, North Qld is major sugarcane growers.
But I always wanted to see the northern tropics and the islands like Green Island.
North Queensland has many beautiful Islands. There is Hamilton Island that a big tourist attraction, Hayman Island, Green Island, Magnetic Island..etc... so many islands in North Queensland.
I had been to Green Island some what 30 years ago, in those time it was mostly catered for Japanese Tourists and it was not recommended for local to go, but my brother lived in Innisfail at the time so we went and it was bad service. The Island was nice, but the service was very bad then. I don't know about how it is now.
Hayman Island in the day when it was own by Anset Airline, it was true beauty that Island and everything else was magnificient. After the Anset Airline gone, the Island resort changed ownership, it was nothing compare to its Anset own days. I went there twice after and that was 15 years ago. I don't know how it is now.
There are many resorts on North Qld's Island were destroyed due to many cyclones over the years. Some restored and some left in ruin.
In those days, there were charter boats that one can hire and cruise around the North Queensland Island by yourself with full week food supplied and you are the captain of the boat, they will teach you how to.
The local Brisbane people also go to near by Island Stradbroke Island
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