本来是去年冬末就应该提笔。我拖拉了很久才有空写下这篇文章，因为现在又到macadamia nut收获季节啦。今天正巧也是元宵节，这也给我一个完成作业的督促。English version is on the bottom.
在写我亲爱的Macee之前必须非常严肃地阐述一个概念。很多华人朋友来我家，看到桌子上的大堆macadamia带着壳的果仁都会惊呼，“这是夏威夷果吗？！”大多数人都没见过还在硬壳里的果仁，不认识没关系。不过我每次会很坚决地纠正，“不许叫夏威夷果。她原产地是昆士兰南部大约布里斯班一带。她的名字叫macadamia，有人也叫她Australia Nuts。请叫她澳大利亚果仁-如果你不说英文。”
她名称的信息来源于我的澳大利亚果树种植的权威参考书 The Complete Book of Fruit Growing in Australia（见下图）。很典型的故事，笨笨的澳洲人从没想到商业化种植，用她赚钱。精明的美国人上世纪来澳发现她后，找了个和昆士兰南部地理土壤气候都近似的地方。昆士兰南和夏威夷都有史前火山熔岩造就的肥沃土壤，气候也是热带近似。美国人大规模商用种植，也培育出了夏威夷种的macadamia，产量高。把她的名声推广到了世界。功不可没，但是名字不可以乱叫。
我家Macee比一般macadamia收获季节稍晚些，一般一月末才开始零零星星落下带青果皮的果子。不过Macee收获季节拉得很长。去年一直到冬末七八月份都不停。以我去年（2021）为例。每天我都可以收获20-50个果子。老板John粗略估计了一下，一整秋冬我们大约收了带硬壳果子50-100公斤。
这么多的果子怎么样吃？大自然有她最好的和谐。正逢冬天，烧壁炉取暖。壁炉上正好用来每天烤几十个硬壳果仁。新鲜的果仁粘在硬壳上，即使可以敲开果壳也不容易剥出果仁。壁炉烤过后，用咱家大力开果仁的玩具啪啪打开 – 那个香……
这么吃还是太多跟不上Macee的产出。食品处理机打成碎粒，加糖和黄油冷藏做成馅，包成汤圆怎么样！再加一些自己做的酒酿，解决了老板John的几星期的早餐。
I have been procrastinating this task on our macadamia tree. It has been badly delayed since the end of last winter – absolutely no excuse to blame Covid-19. Taking the chance of Chinese Yuan Xiao Festival today. Finally, I was motivated to scribble an article down for her.
I must seriously correct a mistake here. All my Chinese friends came to our farm, when they stepped into our kitchen, sighting the little pile of shelled macadamia nuts, invariably exclaiming with delight，“Are these Hawaii nuts?”. The little pile of nuts was still in their rock-hard brown shells. Most people never encountered the shelled nuts. That is fine. However, the name should not be mistaken! Macadamia trees are native to south of Queensland, somewhere around Brisbane. The shrewd Americans have taken to their native nut and made it into major item of commerce. The naïve Aussies had ignored their best indigenous nut and watched as it was taken over by Hawaii and developed there – which has very similar climate, soil conditions to south of Queensland. You are allowed to call her anything you like, such as Australia nut, but never Hawaii nut! Not allowed in this farm.
Our Macee, as I nicknamed her, was already a mature tree when we moved in to the farm 10 years ago. Only bore small crops for the first few years as she erects on a steep slope of the land with poor soil. Over the years we have been truthfully nurturing her, nourishing her with a lot of organic matters. Last year (2021) we met our largest crop ever. From the end of January to the end of winter in August, she has been continuously dropping 20-50 pieces of fruit every day, Boss John estimated totally she provided us around 50-100 kg of de-husked, shell nuts.
While the nuts kept dropping to our food bowl. Processing them into edible or preservable became imperative. The great nature always has her beautiful chord. Cold weather was duly arrived. The ongoing fireplace provided a perfect roasting facility for the fresh nuts. Although The raw nuts can be cracked by our superb nut cracker easily, but the moisture kernels are still attached inside the hard shells inseparably. Roasting separates them, provides the quickest solution to harvest out the nut kernels. They tasted so good, you can never buy from any shops ….
Trying our best to consume the roasted nuts still could not keep up with our Macee her exerting love. I popped up an idea of making the nuts into Tang Yuan fillings. Frozen Tang Yuan turned out the delicious breakfasts for Boss John for quite a few weeks!