Stutley Tales

The most expensive cauliflower in the world.

Sitting around the table at an isolated mission post many years ago, the local MAF pilot and I were making each other more miserable by the minute. Garry’s wife and my husband were doing the dishes while we shared how much we missed our favourite food – cauliflower.

‘Ahhh, for some cauliflower with cheese sauce,’ moaned Garry.

‘Or just drizzled with some butter and pepper,’ I suggested.

‘Cauliflower soup…’

‘Just cauliflower on a plate – how nice would that be?’

We made ourselves quite miserable, wishing for something that we couldn’t have.

It was just too much for poor Garry. Next morning, he called up on the radio to the MAF base in Mt Hagen and asked one of the pilots to go to the market, buy two cauliflowers and put them on the plane that was scheduled to fly to Tari that afternoon.

There was dead silence over the airwaves for a moment. Then the other pilot eventually asked, ‘How much do you want to pay for them?’

‘I don’t care what it costs. Just get me two cauliflowers and get them onto that plane,’ Garry replied.

Later that afternoon, I looked out the window to see the little MAF Suzuki bouncing along the winding road toward our place. Minutes later, a grinning Garry pulled to a stop, hopped out and approached me with one hand behind his back.

With a dramatic sweep of his arm, he presented me with the most beautiful cauliflower I’d seen in years. The only cauliflower I’d seen in years!

‘Where did you get that?’ I demanded.

He told me about the radio message, adding how his sanity was now in question.

‘How much did you pay for them?’ I asked in disbelief.

‘6 Kina each.’

I did a quick mental conversion and shook my head. Surely not…!

‘What…?’ I asked dumbly.

Garry laughed and repeated it. Rough conversion had it at $11.00 Australian (30 years ago).

I learned two things that day. 1. That God provides in mysterious ways, and encourages us with the simplest of pleasures. 2. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.  I made that small cauliflower last my family of 4 nearly a week. We ate one little white tree at a time, enjoying every single bite. It was another 3 years before we would eat cauliflower again. Thank you Lord, and thank you, Garry.

DJ