Dorney Park

TJ invited me to go to Dorney Park with her and her family. Although I have been to Dorney Park before, 3 summers ago, I still found it fun since I love roller coasters (I've never been to a water park before, and I guess I'm just not interested in them).

Knowing amusement parks, I should've brought along some food. I did bring my steel water bottle, and there were water fountains (so I didn't have to waste $3.50 on water!!). The food was overpriced, of course, which is why I got fries. I haven't had fries in at least two months, and I've been craving them, even though I could get them for $1 somewhere nearby. The fries I got were $5.83, although I later saw them for about $5 at another part of the park :(. The fries nice and crunchy though, and sort of fulfilled my craving.

Since TJ's mum is part of a union, they got this free buffet meal thing (it was union day at the park), although TJ told me that there was no real vegetarian stuff there - it was all burgers and hot dogs etc. There was mayo-covered potatoes ("potato salad") and macaroni (sweeter... "macaroni salad"), which TJ brought out of the catering area in my bag, which got soaked in some mayo. Haha, oh well. The potato salad was mediocre, but not terrible since it was free. While we were eating, I was watching the three guys at the table next to ours; two were eating pizza/fries/milkshake, while the other one was eating a burger/fries/milkshake. While he went off to get some ketchup, the other two guys grabbed about half of his fries. He came back with ketchup, and seemed unaware of the fact that half his fries had been stolen. Just an anecdote.

TJ was determined to get funnel cake, so after we had gone on all the rides that we wanted to go on (except Possessed, because we saw it break down four times), she bought one with powdered sugar ($7). I've never had funnel cake before, and I think that it's basically a doughnut with more exposed surface area...it's delicious, yes, but definitely not one of my favourite foods. I'd prefer doughnuts solely because I have more of an emotional attachment with them. The portion is huge, though. We ate only half of it, and boxed the rest for later.

I do like the crunchy bits of funnel cake with a lot of powdered sugar, actually.

Throughout the day, I basically saw foods in shades of yellow. (Such is America, right?). Actually, I did see some coloured foods in the form of sugar+food colouring. Oh, and somehow having real insects in a candy store is a good thing.

I wonder if I can bake funnel cake? Low-free funnel cake? I know that my sister likes it.

Poe-Tae-Toe.

I love potatoes! I love potato salad, too! However, by "potato salad", I mean the cliche vinager+mayo+American potato salad, with chunks of apple and celery, perhaps. Today I found out that I'm not too sure that I like any other type of potato salad.

Today, Commons had a field day - well, not really. They just obtained a lot of potatoes, presumably from a field nearby [since they always boast about how a lot of their ingredients come from within a 150-mile radius]. I've never understood why they always have tubs of raw food just sitting out there; the fruit is for people to take, but apparently they get irked when you take vegetables. Potatoes aren't that aesthetically-pleasing when they look raw and muddy [well, they're still cool, I understand], so why were they on display?

The only conclusion: STUDENTS MUST TAKE POTATOES!!

I am probably wrong.

To use up the huge surplus of potatoes [Seriously, they should have a giant bin that is labeled "free for all!" and dump in vegetables and fruits that they don't want to use to cook, but are perfectly edible - oh wait, those small tubs everywhere? Are those for us to take? I never know.], the fine cooks at Commons made one, I mean, two, no, I mean, seven potato salads.

Going anticlockwise:

The super-white potatoes on the left hand side tasted like coconut. They tasted super creamy, but not fatty or buttery [coconut milk?] and the potato chunks were not starchy; they were sort of raw and apple-like.

The slices were from a German potato salad. These tasted very much like vinegar-potatoes, and the potatoes, again, had an apple-like texture.

The next ones were normal, but not as tangy as cliche potato salad.

The ones without the dressing, and with the French bean, were just ok. Just potato.

The next creamy potatoes were...well, I'm sort of put-off by the idea of having apple-like-textured potatoes. I like potato salad with starchy potatoes that are almost mashed and have a nice, sweet, aftertaste [due to the amylose on our saliva breaking it down]. Most of the potatoes I had today were too solid, firm, and not too flavourful, save the dressing. So, this one would be an example of the potato salad that directly opposes what I envision in a potato salad.

Back up top: These were beautifully coloured and looked practically gourmet, and although the dressing was quite nice [perhaps I was deceived by the looks?], the potato itself wasn't ka-bang.

Centre: Wow. This one was amazing! I love purple potatoes now. The dressing wasn't sour enough for my liking, but the texture of these mini, irregularly-shaped, rainbow potatoes was just amazing! Fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth-after-you-chew, dense, and flavourful!

Overall, I'm surprised Commons decided to stick something at the "special stuff bar" of the dining hall. For the past few weeks, it's been either dips or apples/oranges. Oh, and for the last half of last semester, it was mainly just sandwiches. Except for the one time there were apple items on "Apple day" [which wasn't even that day!]

MP's Grad Party

The Food. Was. Awesome! Well, who am I to judge? The food anywhere, at any party, is usually way more creative than the banal [Though, I eat a lot of bananas at home. And, bananas are NOT banal. Haha. Another silly joke! I'm going bananas!] stuff I eat every day at home for dinner. Though, today's snacks were truly original compared to the past few parties which I attended. Most of it was from my favourite supermarket/civil-exploration place - Trader Joe's! Anyway... awesome pasta sauce!
From left to right: tortilla chips, dried pineapple [simply the best thing there], seasoned crackers, TJ's cheese crackers [A.K.A. "better than Ritz" Ritz-Bitz], carrots, peanut butter crackers, [A.K.A. "better than Ritz" Ritz-Bitz. Did I mention that I used to love the peanut butter and/or cheese flavoured of these? Yeah, in HK these, along with the "Garden animal crackers" were my favourite. Oh, and the chicken [?] flavoured crackers.], sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, spicy chipotle salsa [great!]
Close-up.
Pasta with alfredo sauce, pasta with tomato sauce, and vegetables with butter and bread crumbs. I felt like there was potato in the vegetables... but maybe it was just me. Either way, the vegetables were really nice :)
Salad with onions and ranch dressing. I don't really have a thing for ranch dressing, but I like onions so that was good.
Bad resolution of crunchy oatmeal raisin cookies. They were approximately 2 cm in diameter... and although I could taste the oatmeal, I could neither taste nor see any raisins. Hm. Didn't make sense, but they were really delicious, so I ate a lot of them. Actually, I'm usually more into soft cookies, but these were quite interesting. Reminded me of ginger snaps, even though they didn't have any ginger in them, of course.
My first ever cookie cake [I think]! The icing was icky, in my opinion, but I'm not really into consuming icing. Icing is great to look at, but not really to chug down. The cookie itself was really soft [Some propylene glycol? HFCS? I didn't check...]. and the chocolate chips actually tasted like chocolate chips!
My first eggplant and ricotta pizza ever! The ricotta cheese was pretty amazing; usually I just have it in lasagne, but the creaminess added a really interesting texture to the pizza. The eggplant wasn't that great, though, and I think I prefer plain eggplant parm. Or just grilled eggplant. I found the crust rather sweet, which is kinda weird considering this is a savoury product [Not a candy pizza. Those are... eh...], and it was also really dry. Not flaky dry, but BLAND dry. Maybe I was just really thirsty at the time...

I will update about the chocolate tomorrow.

My Grad Party!

Too much dessert from Costco.

YES APPLE PIE!! Though, I like pumpkin pie more. SD likes apple pie.

Fried rice [one vegetarian], cold noodles, grilled corn, water gun, croutons, POTATO SALAD WITH APPLE!, some weird cow-flesh thing [in the background].

Snack table: trail mix [I made it], fried corn kernels, tortillas, Goldfish crackers, Doritos, crudites and honey mustard dip [I made it], mango salsa, potato chips, toasted pine nuts.

I made rice pudding for the first time of my life. SC and JM liked it. :D YAY

Crudites!

Pasta with thyme and Monterey jack cheese!!

MORE RICE PUDDING!!!!!

I needa get better at estimating the amount of food to make. We had pretty much 60% of the food left, after the party. and maybe 80% of the dessert. This does not bode well with the fact that I will be home [since school is over] for the next few weeks, as I will be consuming that food.