Asian market run

Picked up this haul from an Asian supermarket: Japanese snack mix, Japanese mayo, Asian broccoli, Japanese curry cubes, and Japanese KitKats. Japanese egg salad sandwiches are the best, thanks to that mayo. The slightly bitter Asian broccoli nicely offsets a sweeter dish. I’ve read that over 90% of Japanese homes use curry cubes to make a curry base: just add leftover veggies, spoon some rice on the side from the rice cooker, and you have a satisfying, quick meal.

Categorized as Eat, Asia

The source of our beer

Dinner at Forgotten Star Brewing Co., beer and burgers, sitting outside at a picnic table with friends. Life’s good.

Winding down the week

It felt like the end of our workweek at Town Hall Brewery, just a few blocks from home. For me, it marked the end of a busy week of 12 tiring medical appointments, including four hours today, with a welcome break until Monday. For Dwight, it capped off his time today in the university greenhouse. The onsite-brewed beers were excellent and paired well with the Happy Hour pulled pork sliders.

Saturday food run

First port of call today: stocked up on veggies and bread at our local farmers market, tucked between the Mill City Museum and the Guthrie Theater. I then cycled over to Coastal Seafoods for a nice fatty piece of Atlantic salmon, then on to the Seward Co-op for our favorite almond milk ice cream, which conveniently kept the salmon cold on the ride home.

Journey to a bowl of joy

Put on one of my “ramen tees,” which still bears the faint evidence of previous splashes that no amount of washing will completely hide. Then, I headed over to the U for a morning of pokes, stabs, and staying motionless for 25 minutes. Afterward, a bowl of tonkotsu udon took me straight to a happy place where everything is all right.

Lunch in the park

Cycled downriver to Minnehaha Park for lunch. Sea Salt Eatery has a cooked-to-order menu that is quite sophisticated for a park concession. We got the usual: fish tacos, delivered to our table, washed down with a local draft IPA.

School’s out for summer

One class marked the end of the school year with a potluck, including a generous supply of the ubiquitous and delicious Somali bur (beignets) and sambusas (samosas) on the right.

Lakeside lunch

On the way home from the dentist after a cleaning and an all-clear checkup, I rewarded myself with lunch at Bde Maka Ska (lake). The vegetable curry, fried plantains, and dirty rice nicely suited the steaming hot day. The Park Board recently built this new pavilion after a fire and contracted the catering to a local vendor who specializes in Jamaican cuisine.

Categorized as Eat

A case of mistaken produce

“Finally, grape tomatoes at the Asian supermarket!” I thought. A closer inspection, however, revealed they were actually kumquats. Tomatoes aren’t really a staple in much of Asian cuisine. On the walk home, I couldn’t think of a single Japanese dish featuring them. Back home, I looked it up and confirmed that tomatoes only started to catch on in Japan in the 20th century.