Corn Tortillas!

I love corn tortillas, but I rarely see them for sale. It's always fried corn tortillas in the form of chips or crunchy taco shells. When I saw soft corn tortillas at Trader Joe's for $1.49, I squealed! Yay! I can eat these plain... or with anything, really. I've got to try them with peanut butter one day... but in the meantime, I baked some crunchy tortilla toast (a.k.a. salt-free tortilla chips).

All I did was fold the tortillas (the crease causes a break), stick them on a cookie tray, and stick it in the oven at 400 F, and I checked every 5 minutes or so to see if they looked crunchy/curled up. No oil, because I don't have any.

So corny! Nicely textured...Haha

Independence Day in Historic Philadelphia

~13.2 miles.

It's interesting to be in Philadelphia for Independence Day. I left the house at 10:15ish, and got back around 4. I ran to the Historic/tourist area to check out the parade. During Mayor Nutter's speech, someone in front of me fainted and a dude was yelling "MEDIC!!" really loud, possibly interrupting the speech, but the mayor continued to talk. It was quite an experience.

The parade itself was also quite interesting; I wasn't sure whether I should clap and feel patriotic, thankful, or frown and feel slightly disgusted and misanthropic at the hypocrisy. I felt both the positive and the negative emotions. Mixed. Bizarre, because I couldn't decide. Because I wasn't sure how to feel, I just took some photos. Star Wars characters were in the parade, which was the best part! Actually, most of the parade (marching band, Star Wars, patriotism, armed forces) reminded me of B, which probably incites the whole mixed emotions thing. I got mixed foods too! (harhar).

After the parade, Wawa was giving out free Tastykake items. First, you had to get two red tickets in the Independence Visitor Center. Then, you walk about 30 m, and redeem the tickets for one Tastykake SnakBar. It's funny that they're trying to be "healthy". I totally expected something like a cupcake or brownie... instead, I get this 10 g protein/180 Calories thing that was filled with random ingredients. I ate it right after I got it because it was melting, and it tastes just like a brownie! I am not kidding! Somehow, with all the palm oil and stuff, I get something that tastes like a brownie and has icing and "chocolate" chips embedded! 10 grams of protein, too. I just find it amusing how Tastykake is trying to make and give away healthy products.

At the "Party on the Parkway", I got a lot more Tastykakes, raspberry lemonade, and iced tea. As I walked in, I also got a few samples of gum... I don't chew gum generally, but I guess I might as well bite into these samples for a prolonged period of time and then spit them back out.

I also got some fruit cups! Yay! I threw away the coupons, though, because I believe in buying fresh fruit as opposed to fruit in a cup... or canned fruit. Jam is a different story.

My haul for the day. Dude from the news gave me his autograph. I'm not sure who he is but I guess that's cool. I also got some sunscreen, which was nice since I'm using sunscreen pretty much every time I go out running.

The fireworks were nice. There were smiley face ones.

Nuts To You

Having been to and purchased unnecessary food from all three Nuts To You stores in Philadelphia, I reckon I can give a review. In general, I like Nuts To You, and each one seems to have its own personality.

The first one I visited, on 20th next to Chestnut St., was the most jam-packed (haha) and cosy. The lady let me sample the sugar-dried kiwi, and I'm very glad I tried it, because the kiwi had no fruit/kiwi flavour! I ended up buying 2 lbs of sour gummy bears, because they were "on sale" for $1.99/lb. Uh, they weren't on sale. Also, why are there so many pineapple flavoured ones? And cherry/raspberry flavoured ones? WHERE ARE THE GREEN APPLE GUMMY BEARS?!

The flour coated peanuts that I found at another store, 13th and Walnut, were on sale though, because they had run out of the pizza flavoured one. Actually, a guy came in as I was buying animal crackers, and he asked the cashier whether there were any pizza peanuts and he said that there weren't, which is why the price of the flour-coated peanuts were $0.99/lb instead of $2.99. This is pretty good for peanuts, in my opinion. The cashier was more reluctant on letting me sample a circus peanut from the 1 lb prepackaged bag.

A day later, I came across the Nuts To You on 7th and Walnut, and it looks exactly like the one on 13th and Walnut, except that there is no smell of popcorn :(. This store had exactly one bag of pizza flavoured flour-coated peanuts, for $0.99, so I bought those, and then I went to VP library and borrowed some books. I sat outside eating and reading until I got too many mosquito bites. It was pleasant, though now I'm at least 2 lbs heavier on account of the fact that I haven't run or swam since Thursday, and I've eaten at least 2 lbs of food from Nuts To You.

Once my life is out of schedule, I can't eat or sleep properly. I end up eating too much and sleeping too late. I need to get back to either the high school 7-2:32-5-10ish schedule, or my internship 6-9-5-7-9 schedule.

Nuts To You

721 Walnut St

1328 Walnut St

22 S 20th St

Philadelphia.

Again, I walked through the streets of Philadelphia. Hey, I only have another three years to do this. In three years, I'll look back, and think nostalgically, "Wow, I miss those days walking around Philly, buying food, looking at those rich hipsters smoke and buy from Urban". Cuz, in three years, I won't be living in Philadelphia anymore. I'll probably move onto Boston, or NY. NY is so much larger than Philadelphia. If Chinatown in NY is considered a thin sliver of the Hong Kong pie, then Chinatown in Philadelphia is considered a measly crumb from that pie (and the Chinatown from Boston is...uh, a smaller crumb). Through walking around Philadelphia, you'd think that I'd learn to enjoy this culture. Unfortunately, it seems that I just yearn to be back in Hong Kong.

See, that's my problem; I'm not good at moving and adjusting every 4-6 years; the lifestyle is too ephemeral for me. I can't say I miss anything about Ireland, but I miss Kingswood. I miss HK. Now, I miss high school, even though my journal entries from then tell me that there is nothing to miss.

In an effort to enjoy my time at Philadelphia and live in the moment, I again trekked across the city, all the way to Penn's Landing, and back. There was a Chinatown Block Party today, to celebrate the anniversary of the Official Seizure Of America From The Natives. It's funny to think that all that stuff happened in Philadelphia. ...and now I'm here to get my free drink, sponsored by Wawa. I learned that I actually like raspberry lemonade.

I believe that I love the Mayflower Cafe; last time's avocado bubble drink was phenomenal, and this time's coconut snowball was AMAZING. It was so gooey and soft and fresh I thought I was eating some sort of jelly! It was more solid, though, and...I just loved the chilled, watery-but-sweet-and-light taste of the glutinous coating! The red bean paste was normal. So much better than mochi! $0.80. It's always a delight when something is better than expected. It wasn't thick and chewy and dry, like all the ones from other bakeries (which I still love, but the texture of this one was just perfect for me today).

Mong Kok is a place in HK. The bakery/restaurant was absolutely packed; I had to eat outside because all the seats were taken. I got a lemon bun. A terribly spent $0.80.

I wondered how they could stick lemon into this bun. In the filling? Lemon jam? Curd? Actual lemon pieces? I mean, I understand why pineapple buns are called "pineapple" buns even though they lack any pineapple - they look like pineapples. This lemon bun looked nothing like a lemon (except for the colour but that's a terrible way to name your bakery products)! From what I could tell, there was a layer of puff pastry on top of a normal Chinese-bread bun. But what was the filling, and where was the lemon? Oh, and it was even called "lemon bun" in Chinese. Ning[2] meng[2] bao[1]. 柠檬包。

There was no lemon in the bun. Instead, there was shredded and dried pig pieces. Pork floss. Or fish floss. I'm not sure what animals taste like anymore...

I guess the question is: why would I ever go back to Mong Kok bakery if I evidently have had a better experience at Mayflower Cafe? Well, Mong Kok bakery has a wider selection and cheaper mousse cakes. I've yet to try any of those though. Either way, I realised that I shouldn't buy anymore food for the next month. Instead, I should just swim, run, and bike.

I went to the third Nuts To You (on 7th and Walnut) in Philadelphia and, this time, there were pizza-flavoured flour-coated peanuts! For 99c! They also had cheese and garlic flavour, but I figured that I am most likely not going to consume 4 lbs of flour-coated peanuts within a month (uh, actually, I probably could consume them all during a week...) so I just got the pizza ones. They're a bit stale, but alright. I guess I'll never go to Fresh Grocer again, in my life. If I do, I'll make sure to blog profusely about it.

Eggplant prices have risen. $1.09, a month ago, to 1.19, to $1.89 now, for a pound. So have cherries (pretty much x2 in price, compared to a month ago).

Maybe a food historian will be interested in my blog in a few decades? I'd be pretty happy to read some person's food blog (in the form of a sauce-splattered book, though) from the 80s. Or 20s. From Britain, or Australia.

Maybe I Should've Gone Home...

...over the long weekend.

I got out of work at 1:30pm today.

I went to Qdoba, got 2 vegetarian burritos for $6.25. Misters Washington and Adam and all those others killed so that I could buy two burritos for the price of one.

I walked into the city. I now realise that Philadelphia is puny compared to NY. The sad part is that I will not be able to go to every restaurant and grocery store in Philadelphia, so why would I ever have the chance to get to all of them in NY? Yet, I already feel sick of over half of Philadelphia - the clothing stores, the shoe stores, the furniture stores...

I realised today that the only reasons I still live is to eat food and to be in situations/environments for which I have a deep attachment. Seeing as I do not currently have family to see, friends to see, familiar places to be at, or time periods of my life to relive, eating is all I can do to feel happy in an impersonal, lonely place. Purchasing food has become my way of coping with being alone. Somehow, I tell myself that apart from tuition, the rest of my money is to be used on food. Then I wonder, what else would I spend my money on, anyway? Jewelry and clothes do not interest me that much anymore. Movies and books can be borrowed. I somehow have a bizarre addiction to food. Anything put into savings would end up being spent on food, right?

Today, I walked 8.43 miles from 4:30 pm until around 9:30 pm, pausing to look at some galleries as it was First Friday. There were nice snacks in some of the galleries and some very inspiring art (including some with glitter). One clothing store was giving out free hot dogs and I briefly considered being a scavenger and not a vegetarian anymore. What would happen? However, I am so used to just disregarding animal pieces. I don't know.

Since I was supposed to run today instead of walk, tomorrow I will probably walk at least 16 miles, since I feel that my W-H ratio puts me at a high risk for cardiovascular disease.

So, what did I do today?

1. Nuts To You on 20th St. Nice. Let me try a piece of dried kiwi (tasted NOTHING like kiwi; just sugary...flavourless. Luckily I tried it; otherwise, I would've bought a whole pound of it). Instead, I bought two pounds of sour gummy bears because they were "on sale" for $1.99/lb.

2. Nuts To You on 13th St. Less friendly, but I went because I realised that I could sample a circus peanut. The guy seemed a bit miffed that he'd have to untie a bag of circus peanuts, just for me to take one of them and thus make the "one pound" bag a little less than a pound. Last time I checked, a dried piece of kiwi was heavier than a circus peanut. The person at the 20th St. store was much more lenient about it, I guess. This store was bigger, though, and appeared to have more variety, although it could all just be spatial bias. I am glad that I didn't buy a packet of circus peanuts. Okay, I slightly like circus peanuts; they're chewy, but not really sticky like marshmallows, and certainly too soft to be considered similar to Lucky Charms cereal marbits. Circus peanuts are too moist for that. They're also super-artificial banana flavoured, and I would probably fall in love with them if they were peanut or chocolate or even mint flavoured instead. At this store, I found loads of sour gummy bears, NOT on sale, for $1.99/lb, so I don't know what I'm supposed to think (negatively, I reckon). I bought a bag of animal crackers for 40c because my sister loves them and as I was paying, a guy walked in asking about the pizza peanuts. The cashier said that there were none left, but that they were selling plain peanuts for 99c/lb. I bought a bag of those too. They aren't completely peanuts; they're covered in a flour coating which reminds me of this batter-coated peanut thing I used to eat in HK. And AUS.

A pound for $0.99 is pretty good. Maybe I will go tomorrow to buy another bag.

3. Art galleries. I did enjoy some of the art. It makes me realise how dreary my life has become after starting college. I no longer find inspiration or draw properly anymore.

4. I unintentionally found Bread St.

5. I walked to Franklin Square Park. Watching the families, the toddlers, the skateboarders, and the couples playing mini-golf, I felt lonely.

6. Chinatown. Small. No sign of stores selling those food-shaped erasers. I momentarily considered collecting all food versions of the erasers but I suppose I will just keep a scrapbook of pictures of them on my computer. It serves the same purpose. Collections.

7. Trader Joe's. Corn tortillas. $1.49. Bananas. 19c each or 29c for organic ones. I bought two organic bananas from Colombia. I haven't had enough potassium in the past month so that may explain why I nearly fainted yesterday when I was biking. I ought to add these two items to my Trader Joe's list.