I especially love to try foods that go with places. I think of these as Vacation Foods; unique foods in new and different places. One of the times when I went to visit BFF Sean in Boston, we went to this wonderful little microbrewery near Fenway park-they made the best burger and I had the hard cider they make to go with it… ommmmmmmm nomnom.
On a different trip to Boston, Sean drove me up to Maine,
where we wandered around on a rainy afternoon and stopped in a little town on
the coast to eat… I had the crab cakes-they were wonderful-crabby and crispy. On that same trip, we took a train to Salem on
Halloween, for Samhain (pronounced sow an) a Wiccan Celebration about nature, the
elements and compass directions. What
felt like thousands of people in the park all walked down to Old Salem after
the Gathering. Sean and I ended up in
little Mom and Pop Pizza place; the pizza was great but the place was packed
and you know how I feel about crowds. We
also wandered around in the psychic fair food booths and some of the open stores. I bought my Nightmare Before Christmas metal
lunchbox there.
Last summer I went to Santa
Claus, IN with Mom and my sister’s family.
We mostly ate normal stuff like IHOP, amusement park food and stuff
cooked at the campsite- my brother-in-law, Jamie is a great cook-so that was
all good. But we decided we were going
to try something different-we went to a little place on the side of the road
that sells buffalo burgers. The burgers
were good, but they were overpriced and small, we all ended up having to order
a second burger. If you ever eat
there-be prepared.
The trip with the most memorable
food was when I went to China. Stephen, a
friend from college who has been living in China since he graduated took me to
some very interesting places to eat and I was really glad I took the Imodium
with me. I flew into Kunming, Stephen
met me at the Airport, took me to the Hostel to drop my stuff, and then we went
to find dinner. About a block from the
Hostel was a little street stall selling noodles and grilled squash with red
pepper powder. The food was spicy-but tasty. Even though the travel books warn people away
from them, we ate at street stalls most of the time I was there; spicy soups
with noodles, meat grilled on sticks, Over the bridge soup (a
local specialty mentioned in the travel books) and one particular little
stall that warmed rounds of tortilla looking things slathered with stuff that
looked like thick molasses then wrapped around a puffy dough glob… it was
wonderful-squishy, sweet and warm; Mmmm better than doughnuts. I met Stephen’s local friends and they were so honored to have an American to entertain, that they took me for a fancy dinner. We were in a private room at somewhere or other and we were served all kinds of special dishes-the only one I remember was the deep fried bee larvae-it was crunchy. At another place, I got to try Hot Pot-we walked into what looked like a storage space full of kindergarten sized chairs and tables. The tables each had a hole with a propane tank under it. We picked the split bowl with fish stock in one side and spicy in the other. They lit the tank flame to heat the stock and we went to pick vegetables and meats to add. We added the stuff to the stock and waited for it to cook- it was so good. If I could afford it, I would go back to China for the food alone but there are other places on my dream travel list to visit first.
I eat some interesting things at home too. Some that I come up with myself-like whole pickles eaten with walnut pieces-a bite of pickle then a couple of walnut pieces… good combo. I may try making it into a relish at some point.
Some of the things I end up
eating at home don’t go so well-like the time Mom combined macaroni and cheese
with ground beef and bean sprouts… It was just wrong-crunchy and squishy and the
flavors didn’t go together. I prefer tomatoes
with my mac-n-cheese and ground beef.
