Coconut milk

The guy is pimping his juicer machine but it's still interesting even if you don't care about that. He shows how to open a coconut and how to remove the white portion used to make coconut milk. Coconut is used for things like chicken in Thai cuisine, and other countries for a variety of things, while his coconut milk is used immediately for drinking. He's not just selling machines. He is a true life-style practitioner. He really is trying to do his part to improve people's health as he understands nutrition.

<anecdote>
I encountered a skinny old man dressed ridiculously in a young man's brilliantly colored lime green and white tight fitting, bizarrely patterned cycling clothing, cycling shoes, cycling hat, cycling gloves, the whole bit, bent down low to the floor futzing around the bulk bins for shredded coconut at Whole Foods.

Clearly a nutter.

Walking up and standing next to him I asked him, "What are you going to do with that?"

He looked at me.

And looked. And looked. And looked. I just stood there as he examined me. Assessing me.

I had put on my plain wide-eyed innocent boy face and held it.

He was trying to determine if I was worth answering. He was judging whether or not my question is sincere. I was expecting him to tell me to f off.

He decided my question was real and I merited the time of answering. He launched into a protracted discussion about  how he makes coconut milk from the shredded coconut in the bulk bins. He adds water and processes the shreds in a blender. Then strains it through cheesecloth and chills it. It forms a layer of fat that he either removes and uses any number of ways as fat, or blends it back again and drinks it. Or else doesn't chill it and uses it to cook, a bit thick, as coconut cream. Or drinks immediately with the fat in it. He does this everyday. He spoke a very long time, very detailed, like a teacher speaking to a classroom. Making sure to not leave out anything.

He answered every followup question I asked him with tremendous patience and detail as a religious practitioner would to a convert. For example:

"Isn't it hard finding all that cheesecloth?"

"No." Then he told me where he buys cheesecloth, substitutions he uses, and how it is cleaned and re-used.

And:

"Do ever buy regular coconuts?"

He expounded on his experience with regular coconuts.

And so on. For an unusually long time. And I had only started shopping. This is at the front of the store. There was nothing in my little shopping cart. And I'm standing there thinking, "Damn, if everyone here turns out like this man then my little shopping trip could end up taking all day."

Best not to engage everyone.

I really was curious so I bought some coconut shreds from the same bin and tried what he described. And it worked. But the coconut milk is all the eh and I only used half of the coconut shreds. The rest dried out so completely that I threw it away.
</anecdote>

Amazon [coconut knife]