Antidesima bunius

A few years ago, isip trees (bignay, Antidesima bunius) were plentiful on the riverbank near our house. After Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption, only a handful remain. Today, a lone tree stands but is always laden with fruits in the summer.

The fruit which was taken for granted seems to have found a following with products such as bignay wine and jam being newly marketed to the high-end clientele.

This is how the Department of Agriculture defines it:

Indigenous to Southeast Asia. A small, attractive dark green, dioecious tree attaining a height of 10 m. Fruits are small, 8-10 mm long, dark red or purple when ripe, juicy and subacid containing a single flat seed. The fruits make an excellent wine and can also be made into jam and jelly.

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Weekends are when food bloggers take a break from posting about food and share pictures of their pets. Clare over at eatstuff.net initiated Weekend Cat Blogging and this week is its first anniversary! With the sparseness of my posts here nowadays, this is hardly a break but an explanation!

What keeps me from blogging more often nowadays? Aside from work and personal projects, there’s this big bundle of fur called Kittycat who refuses to budge from my computer table!
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