Showing posts with label San Jose. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

15 Wishes

North America, Portland, Road Trip, San Jose, Travel No comments

When the road trip was over, we swung back through San Jose to pick up some stuff we packed specially for temporary housing and, of course, to pick up Molly and Rupert.

Also we had this 15¢ that we needed to "spend".

We found a dime and a nickel on our road trip and we hoarded them because we wanted to try to gamble them on the slots in NV. However, we were thwarted since all slots are electronic now and you can't just play coins in any machine you darned well please. Sad face.

But I had a plan. A plan for if we could find the time on our last day in CA to make it to the San Jose Rose Garden, where we loved to hang out and volunteer when we lived in the neighborhood.

We stood at the little fountain in the rose garden as dusk fell and we made 15 wishes (one per penny, that is) for our future together in Portland. Then we tossed our coins into the fountain!

Apparently, this is what I look like just after I throw something.

My coin made it into the second tier of the fountain!

We also, you know, looked at all the pretty roses.

Here's to a brand new future in a brand new city! Look out, Portland, here we come!

Two Minutes and Thirty-Four Seconds

California, San Jose No comments

We went to the Tet Festival, a Vietnamese cultural festival in San Jose.

There was this amazing (I mean *amazing*!) dragon dancing.

But, truly, the most incredible thing that happened while we were there was that I somehow managed to convince Eddy that it would be a great idea to sign up for a banh mi eating contest.

He was a little nervous.

Because just look at the competition.

I couldn't even fit the whole table into a single picture. Just a little bit nervous.

The competitors had to put their hands behind their heads before the eating contest began.

Then they had to shove a whole sandwich plus a whole bottle of water in their mouth as fast as they possibly could.

It was not pretty to watch.

Guess what. He won! Second place, but just by a hair. I mean, almost first place!

He got a sack full of prizes.

He totally ate an entire banh mi and a bottle of water in 2 minutes and 34 seconds. It was one of the proudest moments of my life!

Afterwards I also ate a banh mi.

But over the course of more like 10 minutes or so.

Hometown Food Weekend

Ozark, San Jose No comments

Being a transplant is an amazing life. You leave your hometown and you can go literally wherever life takes you. There are things you miss though like family, friends, and favorite haunts.

What I also really miss from Springfield, MO is the food--the trashy, faux ethnic food that I grew up eating. That's why I decided that one weekend in September, I would recreate my three most favorite dishes, the ones I miss the most, here in CA.

1. The Mexican Villa Burrito Enchilada Style (including the complimentary MV chips and dip):

Mexican Villa is a Springfield chain, not authentic by any stretch of the imagination (which I completely came to terms with when I looked over the copy cat recipes I found online) but hearty and yummy all the same.

Now, the burrito enchilada style is a mammoth burrito stuffed with refried beans, seasoned ground beef, and cheese served drowning in MV signature enchilada sauce and topped with shredded iceberg lettuce, diced tomatoes, and (you guessed it) more cheese. Here's the recipe I started from (though I never use low-fat cheese and I adjusted the seasoning until I felt I had it just right.) Here's what we served on the first evening of SGF Food Weekend!

It's much more appealing than it might look in this picture, though the original would be served with approximately 8 zillion more cups of sauce.

For the chips, we used the sauces that you can buy online (eep!) and basically turned a blind eye to the alarming amounts of sugar and preservatives in them.

You basically create your own mix from Sweet, Mild, and Hot. Sweet and Mild are both Sweet and even Eddy agrees that Hot is freaking hot. Then insert chips.

2. Springfield Style Cashew Chicken:

Night two was Springfield style cashew chicken, which was invented at Leong's Asian Diner, and which is beginning to have a national reputation (odd as that may seem.) It's arguably the most Americanized Chinese food available and it's a total phenomenon. This is the recipe we worked from, though there really isn't much variation among the recipes you can find online. Eddy helped this time.

And here it is all plated up.

As you can see, one of the advantages of making your own cashew chicken at home is that you can have as many green onions and cashews as you please (we prefer LOTS!)

3. Andy's Frozen Custard Pretzel Caramel Crunch:

We saved one of my favorites for the finale of our weekend of Springfield eats--the pretzel caramel crunch from Andy's Frozen Custard.

Now, I'm going to be real about frozen custard that is not from Andy's. I've never found one that is quite as thick or flavorful. Even though I will always have a soft spot for my beloved Ted Drewe's in St. Louis, there's just nothing like Andy's.

The pretzel caramel crunch is simple, but ingenious. It's just vanilla custard, caramel, and pretzels. That's it. But it's salty and sweet and cold and crunchy and it's basically heaven.

The good news is that we do have a favorite custard place here in CA called Campbell's Creamery. Now, of course they have caramel, but no custard joint I've ever experienced has pretzels, so we just brought our own.

Rumor has it that a just a couple of days after this photo was taken we returned to the scene of the crime to polish off the second half of the bag of pretzels we bought along with some more caramel and vanilla custard. Allegedly.

The Mom Visit

California, Cobbs, Family Friends, Monterey, North America, San Jose, Travel No comments

Recently (well, okay, a long time ago because it took me forever to get around to blogging about this) my mom came to town for a visit.

We took a bunch of goofy pictures and giggled endlessly at them.

Mostly we spent loads of time playing with the dogs and hanging out in the pool, but we also ate at a couple of really neat restaurants. First of all, we ate at the Grand View which was perched atop a mountain and was reached via a nauseating mountain drive (I was the only one who got sick.) I do have to admit, though, that the view was worth it.

Also, the food was not too shabby.

We also tricked Roy's at Pebble Beach into celebrating my birthday (definitely not my birthday).

After a predictably delicious dinner, we enjoyed a little stroll along the beach.

Also, we saw LOTS of fuzzy bunnies. Go team!

We went out to Monterey and, of course, saw our friends.

Also, we visited our Voltar friend.

Also, Miss Kitty!

And many hats were tried on in stores.

So many hats.

Chopping Volunteers!

San Jose No comments

One of our favorite places to visit in San Jose is the Municipal Rose Garden. It's really close to our house, is free, and was just named America's Best Rose Garden! Recently, we went to one of their volunteer days where they actually set us loose in the garden with clippers and we got to chop things.