PT and I were feeling pretty Asian-centric this weekend, what with all the cold Asian noodles we were eating (shit I seriously almost wrote DEVOURING! Damn you, Sex and Bacon!) and the… ok so the noodles were the only Asian part of our weekend, but as you know food plays a huge roll in our lives so I guess Asian felt bigger.
Aloe Drink - Looks Cooler in... Korean?
We rolled over to Joong Boo Market Sunday on Kimball to take a look around. Joong Boo Market is packed full of Asians, hipsters, and food labeled only in Asian languages. We did our best, picking out a huge bag of bean sprouts, 16 oz of button mushrooms, snap peas, two different kinds of noodles, three different oils and sauces including a bottle of sesame oil, and a bag of the same almond cookies you can get at Chinese restaurants!
We grabbed this bottle of weird aloe vera drink that I’ve tried before and really loved but have only ever seen for $4. $1.75 at Joong Boo! And just as delicious as I remember. Very refreshing on a warm day.
I was very annoyed at the end of this trip. Joong Boo is TINY and there are no baskets, you have to use a cart. All the Asians were looking in our cart and judging our choices. One woman even pointed in our cart to the mushrooms, maybe? and asked if we knew how to cook them, laughing. Back off, bitch! Can’t you just pretend we don’t exist like white people do? You can run into someone at Jewel with your cart and they still won’t make eye contact with you. America!
Kimchi
PT also picked up some kimchi (or gimchi, kimchee, or kim chee). I had the tiniest nibble because it is so pretty! But it’s seriously spicy.
All that? $20.45. I’ll be annoyed for all that savings. That would have been at least $40 at jewel, and where else can you find those almond cookies?!
Looks Can be Deceiving
Needless to say, PT and I were really excited to get home and cook up another batch of cold Asian noodles using our new sauces and veggies. We cracked open the cookies and the aloe vera while we chopped vegetables, mixed up the dressing (with the new sesame oil!), and cooked up our buckwheat noodles. Just like whole wheat noodles, right? … right?
NO. There were too many variables to pinpoint the problem, but this meal had the funkiest, mustiest smell and taste! I’m thinking it was the noodles (only like $2.50 so I’m not too upset about it), and PT thinks we got a weird kind of bean sprout, or they were bad (only $1 so I’m not too upset about that, either). You couldn’t even taste the dressing with the new oil in it! The musty taste took over everything.
PB & J on Stupid Bread
After picking out the vegetables we were still hungry, so we supplemented dinner with more almond cookies and PB & J on my stupid bread.
Simple Oat Bowl
It was a crushing blow. We were trying to remember a failure like that and couldn’t! Which I guess is a pretty amazing average, but it still hurt. Yesterday I kept it simple, a little gun shy! I had oat bowls with fresh Michigan strawberries I picked up at the Logan Square Farmers Market and stupid bread with peanut butter on it.
Huge Amazing (and Simple) Salad
I mixed up this salad last night for dinner. Snap peas, tomato, asparagus (from the farmers market!) hard boiled egg, mushrooms, romaine, and cucumber with thousand island free.
No cooking, just delicious. A place I’ll be for the next few days.
