Cheese and other things

I am slowly making my way through all the cheeses at Trader Joe's (from cheapest to most expensive), and I recently tried Dubliner cheese and Comté. It turns out that I don't particularly enjoy either :(. Although both taste delicious melted, from my experience, ALL cheeses taste good melted. Even the free giant wedge of some sorta fancy cheese we got from Costo in 2006 that reeked of some kinda herb or mushroom or ... I dunno. Even that was n-fold zillion-fold uh, better heated up.

Dubliner cheese: Specially made in awesome Ireland, this cheese has a firm texture, smells pretty good, and is rather crumbly like parmesan. It also tastes crumbly and sour, and has a bite that kicks like Swiss cheese (I'm not a fan of the...hard/translucent (huh, weird adjectives)... taste of Swiss cheese although it looks absolutely beautiful). It tastes good melted though, and is super stringy.

Comté cheese: This French cheese is also hard and has a waxy rind that is crumbly and extremely smelly. To me, this cheese smelled like E. coli on petri dishes. Urg. It may just be me as a Bio lab person, though, because once I walked into my boyfriend's dorm and it smelled like yeast growing on petri dishes (he had just had a certain brand of cheese pizza). Lab smells do not entice me. The cheese itself is hard, dry, and tastes a bit off.  It is, again, delicious when melted, but the parchy E. coli sensation is still there.

I went to Whole Foods and tried their hot food/cold food for $7.99/lb. As this was my first time, I asked the guy giving out gazpacho samples about how the system works. Basically, you grab a box (small cardboard "~1-pound-sized", large cardboard "~2-pound-sized(?)", and large compost-able cardboard (~2-pound-sized(?)") and fill it with hot and cold foods from the trays. You can ask the people at the deli to weigh your box if you want. When you pay, the box and contents are weighed, and you can ask for utensils! I ended up getting around $6 of delicious food, which I ate while reading Grimm's fairy tales right outside the Whole Foods (they have chairs/tables). Unfortunately, this demonstrated that I can hypothetically eat some 3 pounds of honey mustard vegan chicken and still have a raging appetite afterwards. I also really liked the Asian tofu salad thing. The mushrooms were a bit too sour for me. I don't know whether the boxes are recycle-able; they have a waterproof coating on the inside, but it was easily tear-able, so I recycled it anyway...

I also have decided to make dinner by putting all dinner ingredients into a pan and baking them for around 20 minutes at 350 F in an unpreheated oven. As I have a LOT of cilantro (doing pilot taste tests), I baked that too (I am NOT a fan of raw cilantro). So far, I've had three or so of these dump-and-bake dinners. The one below has corn tortillas, topped with sliced eggplant, Comté cheese, soy ground beef mixed with a whole onion, and cilantro.
Also, instead of ice cream, I bought 680 g of frozen mango, ~400 g of which I ate on the way home from Trader Joe's. It is absolutely gratifying, and DOESN'T MELT! It's a great treat.

The Spice Corner!

I'm sure you've all encountered that incident in which you spend $2+ for some tea at a restaurant, and all you get is a teacup of boiling water and a Lipton tea bag. It's a complete rip-off and doesn't make you "fit in with the group" because everyone else is also getting shoddy tea. Let me tell you about a place that gives you at least 20 teacups of blueberry tea for one dollar (hot water not provided).

The Spice Corner, a little bit off of South St., at 9th Ave. A large, what appears to be handmade sign directs all visitors to the small front door. On one side sits a restaurant that has a human-esque cut-out that boasts "Never trust a skinny Italian chef", and on the other side is a street alley. Today, a group of men were performing with guitar music. Cosy little nook.

The firs thing I noticed was the baskets filled with zip-top bags that were filled with a variety of herbs. The baskets were sitting outside the store; evidently, the store-owner, a woman who looked sort of Asian, trusts people won't steal her herbs. As I approached the baskets, another woman opened one of the bags for her husband to smell. They seemed pleased with the smell - and who wouldn't be pleased, given all the choices? Hazelnut, chai, raspberry, chocolate, spearmint, and names I had never heard of - these little packets of herbs (for tea) were only $1 a bag.

Why did I run to 9th, all the way from 41st? Well, I've decided that I can run errands while running, because it not only gives me a distance goal, but also allows me to explore Philadelphia, since I didn't have time during the year. Next semester, I've decided that my grocery shopping will be throughout a whole list of places so that I get to literally run errands, instead of feeling bored in a gym. After all, each food place specialises in only a few aspects. E.g.

Chinatown: eggplant, 白菜 (bak choi), fruits and vegetables

Farmer's Market @ Clark Park: fruits and vegetables

Wawa: milk.

Fresh Grocer: carrots. I need to find a place that sells cheaper bread.

The Spice Corner: Wish I could buy the store!

Reading Terminal Market, Wholefoods, Trader Joe's: I'll see.

What was the errand? Well, my mum wants juniper berries and lemon balm. As a believer in alternative medicine, she thinks that they will help her heal because she's been feeling kind of frail for the past few months (I lean towards the scientific method, but after taking Comparative Medicine (great class!), I've realised that I shouldn't question other people's beliefs, because I'd feel terrible if everyone I knew kept telling me I was wrong).

To my surprise (not really), juniper berries aren't sold at the spice rack of Shoprite. Lemon balm was found as an ingredient in a tea at Shoprite, so I got that for her a week ago. After Googling for places to buy juniper berries in Philadelphia (after unsuccessfully wandering around Chinatown in a half-hearted attempt to find some), I ended up with Wholefoods and The Spice Corner.

So, I ran to Wholefoods, tried a sample of kiwi kefir and tea, and found organic juniper berries in a glass container at the spice rack for $3.66/ounce. They didn't have pure lemon balm, so I decided to run to The Spice Corner. I'm so glad I did, because it's so much better than the spice rack at Wholefoods, Shoprite, or anywhere, really (except perhaps that herb store in NYC, at which I only glanced).

"Can I help you?"

"Do you have lemon balm?"

"No."

"Do you have juniper?"

"Juniper berries?"

"Yeah!"

"Here. 1.39 for one ounce."

OH YEAH. Sure, it's not organic, but it's cheaper, more "local" (not a company like Wholefoods), and in a small zip-top bag so I can run back with it in my hand, sans problem.

I also bought a small packet of spiced chai for $1, and tried a piece of espresso biscotti that the woman had on the table next to the cash register. It was stale from sitting outside all day and made me really thirsty. Oh well. Then I ran to Fresh Grocer to buy some bread. Sigh. I have to get used to living in the city. A loaf of packaged whole wheat bread for 4.49 isn't that cool. Maybe the Farmer's Market will be cooler when I go next Saturday (as opposed to going on Thursday).

I used about a teaspoon of the dried herbs/spices and about 400 mL (i.e. more a teacup) of boiling water and added a packet of sugar. It's pretty refreshing and smells nice. There's no milk in it, so it tastes a bit watery, but flavourful.

Most impressive.

The Spice Corner, 209 S 9th St. Philadelphia PA