tropical grapes?

Today I visited the Missouri Botanical Gardens. I meant to take a closer look at edible plants, but was distracted by all the pretty flowers. I'll have to go back. One tree caught my eye big time. It was in the Climatron, where all the tropical plants dwell. Here's the photos I got of this odd looking fruit tree:






As you can see from the tag in the photo, this is a Myrciaria Cauliflora, otherwise known as Jabuticaba tree. The fruits apparently (you can't taste MOBOT plants, of course) taste similar to grapes, and are indeed used to make jams and wines. I'm tempted to order some wine made from Jabuticaba from Volcano Winery in Hawaii. Or maybe I should take a vacation....Here's a review of the wine. And here's a Food & Wine article about discovering tropical fruits.

Non-Food TV Food shows, Installment 2

(photo from Travel Channel website)

Last night I watched Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmer on the travel channel. This is a good show, for the most part. I watch it every week. This episode found him along the Gulf Coast. It was a little more exciting for me than other episodes, because I have a better chance of traveling to these destinations. I doubt I'll ever make it to the Philippines or India (although I would really really love to). But Southern U.S.? I might be able to swing that.

What you see in the picture above is Andrew and a hunter with a Nutria. It's a kind of water rodent. Coincidentally, CHOW just had a little blurb about a very similar looking creature called the Capybara that is commonly eaten in South America. I thought the Nutria and Capybara might be related...they look alike and all, but they are from different animal families. Anyway, the Nutria sounded pretty tasty...I think Andrew described it as if a chicken and a rabbit mated, that's what the offspring might taste like. Here's some Nutria recipes.

In Mississippi, Andrew went to a down-home soul food/BBQ place called Leatha's. He was there with a member of some Southern Food preservation Society...I think it was the Southern Foodways Alliance? Maybe? Anyway, at Leatha's they cooked up some Raccoon and Possum for them...Andre ate it and liked it. He said the Raccoon tasted a lot like dark meat turkey, and wasn't nearly as oily or gamey as he thought it was going to be. The Food society guy was like, "I'll take your word for it." Huh? A guy who's trying to promote traditional southern cooking, and he won't even try the possum and raccoon? That bothered me.

Some other things he tried on his trip that are on my list of foods to eat before I die: Alligator, Chitlins, squirrel (the Nutria hunter snuck it into his Nutria stew as a surprise) and turducken. I'm gonna have to try and catch this episode again, because I channel surf too much, and do dishes and such during commercials, so I missed some parts. I saw him eat the Mullet roe though. Deep fried mullet roe. Apparently it's an acquired taste. eek.

Zimmern's blog

Zimmern's Flickr

kansas city here i come!

Well, there I went, anyway. Last weekend my sweetie and I headed out there to visit his sister and her hubby, and to be total gluttons for the weekend.

Saturday, we went to Arthur Bryant’s for lunch. A small, unassuming old place, packed with people and smelling like smoke. It's one of the most famous BBQ places in the country. We'd seen it featured on several television shows, and Jack has a friend from KC who always goes there when he visits home. So it was tops on our list of places to go. And it was a good choice. The 4 of us split two beef sandwiches, an order of fries and a pint of beans. It was very yummy. Different than the sauce I'm used to here in St. Louis, more vinagary and thin. Really good. Sopped it up with my thick slice of bread.

Saturday evening, after visiting the Nelson-Atkins art museum and cruising around downtown in the Plaza and Westport areas, we went home with take-out from Oklahoma Joes BBQ. Being big food network nerds, we saw this place on tv, too, and had to have it. It's a BBQ place located in a gas station! We got a pound of beef and a half pund of pulled pork, a couple bottles of sauce and a pint of beans. Their sauce was more like what I'm used to, but I liked it, too. And Pulled pork, oh my, I adore pulled pork. I liked their beans a little more than Arthur Bryant’s. AB’s did have big pieces of burnt ends in them, though. Oklahoma Joe's beans had 3 different kinds of beans, and some small meat pieces and onions and a tomato-ier sauce. I ate lots of them.

That evening, after a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit DVD edition, we went o Sheridans for late night frozen custard. Oh my bob, was it good! I know I come from the land where Ted Drewes reighns supreme, but I really enjoyed my caramel pretzel concrete more than anything I’ve had at Ted’s. Shocking, I know. What’s more shocking? I found out just yesterday that there is a Seridan’s in town!! This could be trouble.

Sunday we had dinner at a Mongolian BBQ place called Ghengis Khan. I really like the concept of Mongolian BBQ. A buffet of raw goods…veggies, meats, sauces, seasoning, that you pick out yourself. Once your bowl is full with everything you want, you take it over to the guys at eh big hot round platform, where the dump it and cook it, stirring it around with two big wooden sticks. The buffet at Ghengis khan had a bunch of seafood, so I skipped the typical chicken and beef and got myself stuffed on scallops, squid, mahi mahi and shrimp. My first bowl was just a simple mixture of edamame and some other greens, seafood, soy sauce, ginger, garlic and sesame oil. While waiting for my first batch to get cooked, I grabbed some pork satays from the little appetizer bar. One of the sauces for dipping was a peanut curry sauce. I was inspired! For my second plate, I added lots of fresh cilantro, some more seafood, a couple kinds of greens, tofu, garlic, ginger, then, here’s the good part, crushed peanuts & lots of curry powder. What a great meal! It’s hard not to eat too much. So I ate too much. Like it was hard to walk afterwards :)

After that, we went to Cold Stone Creamery. We got it to go, because none of us could fit another moresel of anything into our stuffed bellies. I got the German chocolate cake specialty. The girl messed it up a little and added chocolate chips and forgot the nuts. But basically it was a brownie, some caramel and coconut in the chocolate ice cream, It was so so so so delicious!! It was my second time having Cold Stone. I had it a couple weeks ago when a gal from work and I decided to do an “Ice Cream for Lunch Day.” That time, I cot French vanilla with cake and chocolate and graham cracker crust, and it was a little too sweet. But the germanchocolatecake (however the heck they spell it…) was pure heaven.

Oh, I forgot, On Saturday afternoon we stopped by at this place called The Red X on Riverside. It’s this crazy big place with…well, just about everything. They have groceries (we needed Texas toast for our Oklahoma Joe’s), a 99cent section, antiques, Farm gear, etc. But the best part (besides the collection of antique glass eyes and false teeth…eeeek) was the wine section! Believe it or not the selection was really big, and well-priced. And the guy working seemed to really know his stuff. He recommended Syrah to go with our bbq dinner. We ended up with Guenoc Petit Syrah. It was very good wine, and really went well with our pulled pork and beans.

A couple more neat BBQ links... Next time we visit KC, there’s some other places we want to try for BBQ, such as LC’s and Gates. This site has tons of reviews of KC BBQplaces. What about outside KC? This site is all about BBQ styles around the world, with the US broken up. Very interesting.

start spreadin the news

has it really been more than 2 weeks since my last post here? That time went by in a New York minute!

But alas, I've returned to my little foodie funland. I've been in St. Louis all along. But my good pal Kelly did recently return from a trip to New York City. I've been there once, and LOVED the place. There's so much to do, see and TASTE! So that's my theme this week. I wanna be a part of it New York, NEW YORK!!!

I mean come on, what other place has super-specialty restaurants like a cupcake cafe, a grilled cheese place, a cereal bar, a peanut butter diner, and soup-nazi like little soup stops?

One of my favorite blogs, LJC, recently had a trip the NY, too. She had some great posts about the eateries. Check out this one about her plans. Be sure to check out the comments, which are ripe with suggestions, also!

A blog that's no longer (she moved west and is now called Full Belly blog) called NYEats.

Another neat New Yorker food blog (thanks to Kelly for the link). Great writing.

The Gaigin Girl's guide to Chinatown. A good resource for Asian food info. I loved Chinatown in New York. I'd like to spend a whole day there next time I make it to NY.Or at least go to the China town ice cream factory. Such neat flavors!

Sushi New York. Yay! Sushi!

What's a visit to the Big Apple without some deli action? When I went a few years ago We visited Stages Deli (Huge sandwiches named after famous New Yorkers. I had the Alice Cooper). and Rupert G's Hello Deli, where the sandwiches aren't as big, and are named after Late Show people (I had the CBS Orchestra and my cousin Dan had the Bif Henderson). And yes, we totally met Rupert and got our picture taken with him.

I could go on and on about New York and food, but I think I'll stop now. Surely there will be future New York posts. Hopefully at least one will be from my very own food adventures in the big city.

island hopping

warmer weather is approaching...well it's pretty much here. not hot weather yet. just warm...perfect really. anyway, i'm getting into that summer mode. swimming, wearing tank tops and flip flops, and yearning for some tropical flava. so this week i go island with a tropical food theme.

How to cut a pineapple like a native.

Bamboo chicken. what a neat method!

An exibit all about edible tropical cacti, like pineapple and agave (yay tequila!).

Information about all kinds of edible tropical plants provided by the Missouri Botanical Gardens.

Lychees online. I've tried Lychee juice and lychee candy. I'd like to explore this fruit some more.

Big list 'o bananas!!

A neat (and pretty!) website about Thai food, with menu translations, pictures, links and more!

An article and some informational links about Cuban cuisine. I never thought of Cuba as a place I'd like to visit someday, but this article makes it sound fun!

How to crack a coconut.

Soak up the sun and the sweet juices of the tropics. summers comin' and there's nothin' better than some island eats and drinks.