Spur of the Moment Stew and Trader Joe's Too

This weekend was fun. Our normal Columbus D&D group got together and rather than playing this time, we went to the North Market and Just kind of hung around playing Rock Band and whatever else came to mind. It was a good time. We started with the North Market, which was about as close to an old world Marketplace as you can get in 21st Century America. All kinds of strange, unusual foods and fare. Michelle and I tried chocolate milk tea with coconut jelly, as well as a banana honey smoothie with tapioca pearls. The experience was odd. I liked them both, but with a certain amount of healthy wariness. There was a trip to a hobby store and of course the obligatory stop at Trader Joe's. I love Trader Joe's! We always load up on dried fruits and anything odd that we find that looks good. This time we picked up candied dried hibiscus blossoms. They turned out to be pretty good. A little like a fruit roll up kind of texture, but they're flowers. As always I grabbed my flattened dried bananas, and we got a bag of freeze dried rambutan. We had a bag full of things, including a wide assortment of Clif bar flavors we can't get at home. Apple Cranberry Cherry and Carrot Cake are my personal favorites. So as the evening went on, we all found ourselves back at the Chez Cooper, where Aaron and Michele had earlier set a crock of leftover pork from the pig roast to warm. That was fantabulous as well, along with a Lemon-Rosemary Cake from a Ravenwood Castle cookbook. You'd really begin to wonder if I was actually dieting if you only read this entry. :) As for that though, I have made it to my halfway point. 25 pounds and counting! After we had dinner, Gina showed us her new kitchen knives and gave us a quick lesson in proper vegetable chopping technique. We then took the pile of chopped practice vegetables and made "Spur of the Moment" stew by throwing them, some chicken broth and a little pork together, and seasoning it with wreckless abandon. It turned out to be pretty good I must say. So that's what I did on my weekend vacation and now I'm getting ready to head off to Las Vegas. Maybe I'll see Elvis!! -J