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| Lychee tree (Photo: JLS Farms) |
Twenty years ago, some 800 lychee trees were planted in the dry, rocky soil near Miami called the Redlands.
More than a decade later, Royal Caribbean started the gargantuan task of building the world's biggest cruise ship.
Who could have known in 2011, both would come together via a James Beard-award winning chef. But that's exactly what happened, and Ellen Samimy was sitting in the Solarium on deck 16 of Oasis of the Seas to tell the story.
Lychees from JLS Lychee Farms are one of the featured items on executive chef Michael Schwartz's new menu at the upscale venue on Oasis, 150 Central Park, and have long been staple at Schwartz's other Miami-based restaurants. Sweet, white and succulent, lychees make two appearances in the just unveiled summer "Meadow" menu -- as the opening course of the six-course meal, "Florida Rock Shrimp and Lychee Summer Roll," and the last course, "Lychee 'Tres Leches,' Hani's goat milk sherbet, biscotti crumbles and toasted meringue."
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| Lychee springs rolls (Photo: Gerry) |
Back at the Solarium, Schwartz and his team of chefs were showcasing more of their lychee handiwork in the form of spring rolls. The taste? Oh my!
Schwartz's farm-to-table commitment has been a Godsend to South Florida farmers, like JLS Farms. It's been a long and winding, but rewarding, road to 150 Central Park. Ellen tells it well:
"Anne and Harry Miller met Drs Jean and Lina Samimy (my parents-in-law) about 35 years ago when their kids were in school together in Miami. The Millers settled in the Redlands, the farm land of Miami County about 25 years ago and planted out the land surrounding their home with a variety of tropical fruit trees, and Harry spent many hours and years perfecting how to grow high quality, pesticide/fungicide-free fruit. He discovered and grew lychee, which grows only South of Palm Beach in sub-tropical weather and does very well in the dry, rocky limestone common in the Redlands.
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| Placing the trees (Credit: JLS Farms) |
"All his lychee trees were destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in 1991, but Harry had learned much by then and he and my father-in-law Jean joined together and planted out 15 acres of lychees in 1992, just following Andrew. (800 trees.)
"Lychee trees do not yield fruit for 6-7 years, but they need a lot of granular nutrition during that time, and my husband Roland and I joined Harry and laid out many, many thousands of pounds of NPK – cup by cup, tree by tree, acre by acre. As a New England girl transplanted to Florida, it was an amazing introduction to the tropical world! I tasted by first papaya, mango, etc… right off the trees while working the farm in the Redlands – what a gift!
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| JLS Farms (Credit: JLS Farms) |
"Somewhere around 1999, we had fruit to pick. We would travel down to the trees together as a family – always bringing summer visitors to help, and pick and pack as a family, learning the right (and wrong) way to pick lychees. My in-laws would tell us family history as we picked – they both grew up in Tehran. Lina spent her summers in a orchard outside of the hot city. She shared her fond memories of sleeping outside in the grove in Iran, under a tent, enjoying the cool and fragrant air.
"Jean's father was an agricultural engineer, the Shah had asked him to travel the world as he developed the sugar cane industry for the country, and we heard stories of the farming families who struggled so hard and paid such respect to the land. We learned together that fertilizing the trees, that picking and packing must be greatly respected. This is extremely hard work, beyond the romance that we all enjoy.
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| Ellen Samimy on Oasis (Photo: Gerry) |
"We met Michael Schwartz through a wonderful series of small coincidences in 1999 and have loved supplying him with lychee ever since. I have always, and ever will be, head over heels in love with the lychee spring roll. Harry Miller, who is now 74 yet still running marathons and operating the lychee grove, was promoting whole foods before whole foods were cool. We are all thrilled to be a part of Michael's farm to table world. This experience on (Royal Caribbean) shows us just what is possible when we keep it simple."
And thanks to Michael's magic in the kitchen, who knew simple could taste so good?
-- Gerry, for Cruising Squared
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