On a walk with a friend, cooled off in a large Asian supermarket. Noted the nonreturnable durian. “Its odor is best described as pig-excrement, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock.” (Wikipedia.) Left with a bag of matcha Japanese Kit Kats.
Category: Eat
Breaking a Fast
After a fasting blood draw, made up for lost time with corned beef hash and a fried egg at diminutive Al’s Breakfast in Dinkytown. The transfer from the griddle to a plate in front of me was performed with a minimum of movement.
Surprise BOGO
It has been an inflation-beating week. Tuesday: 20% senior discount at Coastal Seafoods. Later I learned about Wedge Co-op’s 5% off for seniors on Wednesdays. Today: a surprise BOGO (Buy One, Get One) on ice cream at Lunds & Byerlys. (Grand Ole [Creamery] is a local ice cream maker.) Life’s good.
Found Money
Noticed this announcement at Wedge Co-op where I stopped to cool off with a dish of vegan vanilla coconut milk soft-serve. We spend a lot of our grocery dollars at the Wedge, so I think we’ll be making a point of shopping there on Wednesdays from now on. Maybe we’ll get carded!
A Seat at Al’s Breakfast
With most university students gone for the summer, it was finally possible to quickly snag one of the 14 stools at 1950s-era Al’s Breakfast in Dinkytown. The corned beef hash with a fried egg on top in the narrowest restaurant in Minneapolis was sublime.
Ben, Jerry & Rhubarb
Today is Sausage Saturday, a tradition that always includes ice cream. The big question is: which flavor goes better with rhubarb sauce, vanilla or caramel? I suspect the answer is: both. Yesterday, Dwight made the sauce from rhubarb he’d harvested from his sister’s garden.
Tired Time Travelers
Problem: Working through a 14-hour time difference, and too lazy/tired to cook dinner. Solution: Walk across Washington Avenue to Maxwell’s.
Fake Food vs. Google Translate
Dwight checked out the sampuru, realistic plastic models of food, before we all headed inside for dinner. In the past, I would take a photo of my choice to show the server what I wanted. But these days, Google Translate is so good, we can just point our phones at the menu.
Family-Style Sushi
After reviewing an upcoming trip to Japan with a nephew and his dad, the rest of the family joined us for a trip to a Japanese restaurant. With two teenagers in tow, this photo represents a fraction of what was eaten.
Collecting Calories
On my urban walk: refueled at a donut shop where I had a nice chat with the person ahead of me in line while her order for seven dozen assorted donuts was being fulfilled one-at-a-time; guilted by Girl Scouts to buy cookies; filled my large backpack at a supermarket.