Downtown farmer's market....

I thought the downtown farmer's market does not open until July but I was wrong. It had started the day before I left for my vacation.

So today, an officemate and I went to check it out. Since the city is doing a lot of road construction downtown the market had spilled into Jasper Avenue which is the main drag downtown. I was not expecting to see a lot of veggies but actually there was a lot fresh stuff.

I wanted to buy white baby potatoes as I am planning to have roast chicken tonight. They did not have the really baby ones so I ended up going to the grocery store close to where the market is and bought my baby potatoes.

I ended up buying a dozen coconut cookies and chunky chocolate with skor. Also, I bought fresh baked loaf. I did not bring my camera or cell so I don not have pictures.

While at the market, we realized it was Gay Pride day in Edmonton and the parade was just about ready to start but they are going through a different avenue so we did not bother to watch. I see enough of them in my building and they are friends of mine, so I hope they enjoy today.

Johnny Garlic's in San Jose...

Last time I was in San Jose, I wanted to try this restaurant owned by Guy Fieri of the Diners, Drive Ins and Dives fame on the Food Network.

But at that time, I believe it had just opened and a lot of people want to try it, so it was a bit busy and crowded. But this time we went for lunch with a friend of my sister and it was not busy at all. It was the Friday before the Memorial weekend.

We sat there and waited for her friend and we ordered Garlic potato chips. It was really garlicky with parmesan and finely chopped fresh garlic. It was really good but I did not have to worry about the garlic smell as we were shopping after that.

I was not really hungry so my sister and I shared sashimi wan tacos. It had sashimi grade ahi with mango jicama salsa and wasabi soy. It was really good.

Our friend ordered bison burger with garlic potato chips on the side. We all ordered iced tea with different flavours, I think mine was raspberry. I would go back here and try other stuff on their menu.
Service was really good.

Garlic potato chips

 

Sashimi Won Tacos



Restaurants....food

While visiting my sister, we always go to places/restaurants I want to try or just food I have not tried yet. Before I get there I would google places and see if I have a place I am interested in going.

Sometimes it is an ad on tv that I remember I want to try. This time I wanted to go to Sonic and so after our trip to the Artichoke Festival we passed by a Sonic location and tried their food.

I ordered cheeseburger with onion rings and pineapple milk shake, my brother-in-law ordered the chili dog with sweet potato fries. I think my sister also ordered a burger with something else. The burger was big and the onion rings were good. I like the milkshake as it was quite thick and had  really pineapple you can taste.

These are all the flavours of the drink you can order from tea to smoothies.

Sorry about the imperfect bun but I just wanted to show how big the burgers are and they are a lot better than the one from the very well known arch.

 

The chili dog, as you can see it was a drive in and it was hard to take pictures of the food.

 

While shoppping at a Mexican grocery store, we decided to eat there as they also serve cooked food to stay or take out. I ordered the Mexican version of poutine.

The fries under the carne asada with sour cream and guacamole. I could not have salsa or pico de gallo as I do not like cilantro. As usual I could not finish as it was too much.

 

And for my sister's birthday, I cooked a big pot of jambalaya which turned out well.

 

 

 

 

 



A very sad news.....

I posted an item about  weeks ago about a lady who celebrated her 100th birthday. It was a successful get together for friends and relatives. I was told there were more than 200 people who came to their open house to greet her.

I was able to talk to her and wish her Happy Birthday.

After a week, I heard she was in the hospital maybe from all the stress and excitement and some sad news she received. A nephew who attended her birhtday bash died and a month later, her brother died.

She also fell and broke her hip and had to have surgery. Sad to say, she did not really recover from that and she passed away on May 23, I believe.

I am just glad that she was able to reach her 100th birthday which she had been looking forward to for so long. I also know when she told me, the last time I visited that it was hard to be just waiting.
Now she is at peace and resting.  I believe she has now gone home. We will miss you, Wiwa.

 

 

Picture taken on her 100th birthday celebration.

 

She is a very religious and spiritual person so I think this song is appropriate to dedicate to her.



Fruits.....Spices....

Every place I visit I always like to go into grocery stores to see what kind of food, fruits or spices I can see and buy. Most especially fruits I have not seen or tasted for a long time. I enjoy looking at fruit trees and always say I would like to steal them if I am walking close to them.

Thank God, I have relatives who have fruit trees where I can enjoy picking or they give me fruits I have not tasted.

Visiting my sister is the same, we go around stores and look for exciting stuff.

Cherimoya which is like sugar apple and sour sop and my sister refers to it as mutant. We found them a week before I was to leave and these were not ripe so we had to google how to ripen them faster and it says it needs sunny place. So here I was moving it from one sunny location to another even taking it outside. Lucky for me two days before I had to leave they were ripe and enjoyed them.

 

These are loquat and my cousin has a tree filled with fruits and I asked what they are and she brought a little bag filled with these fruits. I tried to eat as much as I only had a day to enjoy it, sadly you cannot take it with you.

 

I also bought spices...sweet paprika, Mexican vanilla, bay leaves, Badia complete seasoning and my cousin sent me Santa Maria seasoning.

 

 



Artichoke Festival....

After I landed at SFO, my sister told me we will be picking up her mother-in-law and go home to drop my suitcase and then we will be on our way to Castroville to go to the Artichoke Festival.

It was not a long drive and soon we were there and we had to park and get on the bus. The parking attendant told us not to miss the deep fried artichoke so we knew we had to have it.

As we go to the gate to pay the entrance fee, they asked if we were seniors 55 and over and we were never so excited to get a discount 50% off.

This is just like a fair or small exhibition where they not only have food vendors but also crafts and other displays.

Half way through we remembered to take a picture of the deep fried artichokes which were reall good, I could have eaten a second plate.

The spiral spud which was fresh and crispy and we sprinkled with different salt and spices.

One of the displays all made ot artichokes.

Bear made of artichokes

 

There was also a display of old classic cars.

 

It was enjoyable and it felt like being in Mexico as the community is where farm workers live and all you can hear is Mexican being spoken.

 



Cache Creek Casino in Northern California.....

I have gone to different casinos, here in Alberta, Ontario, Nevada, California even in the Dominican Republic and they are ok or great.

When I was visiting my sister, we decided to go to a casino resort...Cache Creek Casino. She did not want to drive so to make it relaxing, we took the tour bus to the casino. So I was expecting a nice drive, until we got on the bus and it was one of those older tour buses. Then the driver started the engine and we were sitting very close to it and it was awfully noisy.

I guess that was a sign of bad things to come. Then we heard that the washroom is not really working and only for emergency.  I took my sister's Kindle Fire and started reading and it was good as it made the ride go faster and less boring. My sister was taking a nap and has head phone so she could sleep.

Arriving at the casino, we had to get to the washroom and when we registered, the CSR commented that we should have registered right away and this was done in a very rude and unfriendly manner.
By this time I was not looking forward to anything and then realized there was smoking and a little area that was non smoking.

I played for a while and soon was winning and if I was at home, I would have cashed out and gone home but since we have to be here for 5 hours, I walked around and then played some more until I had lost my winnings and then I found a machine out of order and decided to sit there and took out the Kindle Fire and read until it was time to go home.

All in all.... I would not ever, ever going back.....