“Adding kidney beans to his cottage cheese and pineapple was an act of bravery Dave had not intended.”
Though it may be a cloudy day, it is warm, 59°, and it may hit 60°. Spring is in the air today. It is sweatshirt weather.
When I was a kid, I lived in the same town where I was born. We lived in a duplex in the project. The project was loaded with kids, a few my age but most around my sisters’ ages. There was a parking lot at the top of the hill, but no one parked there so we used to skate on the empty lot. Back then my skates were attached to my shoes and tightened with a key. I never wore sneakers when roller skating because the skates didn’t stayed attached to the sneaker sides. I used to love the feeling on the soles of my feet through my shoes when I skated on the tar in the lot. Sometimes I was brave enough to skate down the sidewalk from the top of the hill to my house, halfway down the hill, but if I went too fast, I’d get scared and throw myself on the grass beside the sidewalk, but once in a while, despite my heroic efforts, I’d fall on the sidewalk. I’d scrape my knees or my elbows or both.
When I was young, I’d eat things I’d never eat now, and now I eat things I’d never have touched back then. Sardines roil my stomach if I see them now in the open can side by side head to tail. The idea that they were a go to snack for me gives me the chills. I’d munch them on Saltines. On Fridays during Lent we didn’t eat meat. On some Fridays we’d have formerly frozen fish sticks and fries. I remember the crispy fish sticks were white inside. I have no idea the sort of white fish they were, and I don’t remember their taste. I don’t eat frozen fish now. I can’t even remember the last time I did.
My palate expanded, especially in Ghana. I ate goat, fish with heads, hummus, Guinea fowl, Indian food and local foods like cassava, garden eggs and plantain. On my trip through South America, I ate ceviche and in Ecuador I ate what I found out later was guinea pig. In Finland I just pointed at the food I wanted as I didn’t speak Finnish, and the second language there is Swedish. Most of the time my eyes chose well.
If you’ve been around a while, you know I don’t beans except green beans which aren’t really beans to me. I find kidney beans disgusting. Even the name is disgusting. Baked beans, nope. Lima beans are gross. My chili never has beans. Retired beans look like something expelled by a baby at one end or the other. I don’t even sing the bean song.
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April 4, 2023 at 2:17 pm
Hi Kat,
Yesterday was a sunny but freakish day. We actually hit 94° which was one degree below the record. Today it’s cloudy with an expected high of a cool 83°.
I think every kid growing up owned the roller skates that clamped onto your shoes. When we bought our first house in North Dallas, my father put in a patio. It was really just a large slab of concrete and he had the contractor finish the patio with a smooth surface. It was our roller skating rink.
When I was a kid, I only ate the things I was used to eating. My pallet didn’t expand until I became an adult and I tried new foods. Until the mid 1970s Dallas was a foodie’s wasteland. The natives ate fried everything, barbecue, etc and big well done steaks. Since then the DFW area has become a cornucopia of ethnic restaurants of all types due to the influx of people from all over the country and the world. Having a large international airport didn’t hurt.
In 1980 or thereabouts, I flew a trip to Ft. Smith Arkansas.I was staying in a hotel which across the street there was a very good, and authentic Chinese restaurant. I asked the owner how he came to open a Chinese restaurant in such a small rural city. He explained that he was a refugee from Vietnam and the U.S. government sent him to the former Ft. Chaffee Army base nearby when he first arrived. When he was allowed to leave the base, he walked out into the town and said, “What a nice place and there are no Chinese restaurants”. He then opened one. Last weekend I was watching a cooking show hosted by Andrew Zimmern. He was exploring the food scene in Ft. Smith Arkansas. His guest was a Vietnamese family which took him to a huge Asian grocery store. The Chinese restaurant owner wasn’t the only refugee to stay in Ft. Smith. 🙂
April 4, 2023 at 4:08 pm
Hi Bob,
Wow, I would never think of 83° as cool. That’s a hot day here.
That’s a great rink and in your backyard. That parking lot was also close. The only problem was it had sand which would sometimes make us skid.
My mother always served what we liked. I guess she figured it was easier than fighting. We always had meat, potatoes and a vegetable. My favorite was peas, but I also loved corn too. She only served beans on Saturday nights and for barbecues.
Boston always has had a vibrant Chinatown which I loved to visit. The food there is authentic. I loved a couple of hole in the wall restaurants. We had only Italian and Chinese restaurants in my town, but that has changed. There is even an Indian restaurant. I was first introduced to Indian food In Ghana, and I usually ate some Indian food when I was in London. Now I don’t have to go every far.
April 4, 2023 at 6:10 pm
Just came across this article you might enjoy:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/chinese-food-around-the-world
April 4, 2023 at 8:44 pm
Thanks, Bob
This made perfect sense to me about Chinese food abroad.
Back in the day, there was one Chinese restaurant in Accra. The food was Chinese but it wasn’t also.
April 4, 2023 at 7:30 pm
It would be great to live near the ocean to get fresh fish. We just live too far away so frozen fish is better than old fish, occasionally smoked trout or mackerel. I like fish sticks with fries. I think I should visit the Dutch North Sea again this summer, I miss the ocean…
Cold but sunny today, frosty at night, my magnolia flowers didn’t survive these freezing temperatures.
April 4, 2023 at 8:50 pm
Birgit,
I have a great fish market near me so that is where I shop. They have such a great selection of fresh seafood.
Mackerel is not popular for eating here. Most fish markets don’t carry it.
It got to 63° today. Right now it is 51° and won’t get much lower. We are expecting rain.