Life is a bit more complicated now that I have to be driven everywhere and get dropped off at front doors where I’d normally walk. Lovely lunch with friends at a Hilton (0.6 miles), a beautifully repurposed farm machinery factory, for extreme comfort food: Swedish meatballs, mushroom gravy, lingonberries (mandatory) and horseradish mash. Tonight, Kunene and the King at the Guthrie (0.3 miles), a confrontation between a white and a Black South African.
Category: Eat
These belong together
Probably the best almond croissants in the city, plus steamed pork buns ready for the freezer, all from Trung Nam French Bakery. We met friends at Trung Nam over coffee and croissants. The almond ones are usually gone by mid-morning, so I called in an order yesterday. I love how Vietnamese culture so seamlessly absorbs other traditions, including French and Chinese.
A konbini lunch
I can’t go to Japan right now, but Japan can come to me. Lunch today was Japanese fast food: gyoza, Spam musubi, and chicken yakitori. You can find Spam musubi in just about any konbini (convenience store), a popular snack originating in Hawaii.
Time to get dunking
Arrived home to the smell of baking biscotti.
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.
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.