Small-town Chinese food:

I forgot to mention this before, but I am pleased to announce that small-town Chinese food in Australia is just about as bad as it is in the US. Even when the cook is Chinese or at least of Chinese descent. Why is that?

Oh, and I found a fish and chips place that serves poutine (a French Canadian dish of fries, cheddar cheese, and gravy). My French-Canadian friend would be so pleased. I took a picture of the menu just for him. I didn't eat it this time, but I've had it before. The cheese melts in the hot gravy and the whole thing is artery-clogging fantastic!

Randomness in the outback

I'm currently staying in Atherton, Queensland, which is about an hour inland from Cairns (using the world's slowest internet and what is possibly the smallest monitor still in use...I think it's a 13" CRT). Yesterday, I drove to a place called Chillagoe, which is another hour and a half inland from Atherton. Getting there involves a long drive through land which at best is marginal. When I got there, it was 98 degrees and dusty, with red earth which pretty obviously won't grow anything useful.

On the way back, I stopped at a town called Almaden. Specifically, I stopped at the railway hotel (read pub) in a town of about 150 in the middle of the desert. Inside the bar seemed very well-stocked, and the publican was the only person there. He asked me if I'd like to sit in the beer garden, which was this gorgeous little patio with ferns and orchids and other flowers I didn't recognise everywhere. I wonder how business usually was.

Waffle Snacks

When I find a strange food in the supermarket I am always compelled to buy it and force my friends to eat it with me, which is not necessarily a nice thing to do to one's friends, but at least I didn't bring these to a chocolate fountain party.

In the product listings on the official Old London website, Waffle Snacks (featured at right with Parlay score card and chip) are listed last, below Old London Restaurant Style Croutons and Old London Bread Crumbs. I take this to mean that Old London believes its customers are more likely to buy crumbs of bread than neon orange cheese-filled waffle sandwiches.

From the product description on Amazon:

Warning! Waffle snacks are totally addictive! ItÆs good to eat about 8 waffle snacks, It's better to eat about 15 Waffle Snacks. It's best to eat an entire box of Waffle Snacks! Old London Waffle Snacks. Nothing short of a totally unique, out-of-the-box experience. The story behind the snack. Did you know that Waffle Snacks are made from real waffle batter in tiny waffle irons? They're filled with zesty, real cheese and pressed into bite-size sandwiches...

When considering whether to eat an entire box of Waffle Snacks, it might be useful to know that (according to caloriecount.com) a serving size of 3 pieces has 70 calories and 4 grams of fat, 2.5 of which is saturated. Also, I was unable to get a group of 5 or 6 people to eat half a bag of these things.

A very similar product is marketed under the name Cheez Waffies by Wise. Apparently they are made with real cheese with an S and they use the Z just for larfs.

I think everyone agreed that they would have been tasty if filled with, say, chocolate, but at present they are only available in cheddar and swiss.

PA Dutch Funnel Cake

On Saturday afternoon one Hiking Club member (me) plus guest (Geoff) wandered around Columbia. At the movie theater we spent $4.25 on a large water. After deciding not to spend $5 on a small popcorn and attempting to purchase loose candy from a dispenser but then returning it because there were no bananas in my Nit Wits, it looked like a sad day for eating in suburban Maryland. Then, out of nowhere, appeared a sign from the Food Gods:

According to http://www.funnelcake.net, the "original" Pennsylvania Dutch Funnel Cakes company is headquartered in Williamstown, New Jersey. This truck was located at the Long Reach Village Country Fair in Columbia, MD. If you think about it long enough it all makes perfect sense.

Unfortunately we didn't eat a funnel cake or a Sno-cone, which were being sold nearby, but it is worth noting that the Country Fair was occupying the courtyard next to the Safeway where The Hiking Club purchased the Powerpuff Girls cake that started it all. Although no funnel cakes were consumed, I did buy 7 cans of dark red Hanover kidney beans (6.75 of which are yet to be eaten) at Safeway so that I could mail in the UPCs to get a free Kid Bean toy. I tried a Diet Pepsi Max, with extra caffeine and ginseng. I swear that the next day I had a Pepsi Max Hangover (tm).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Later we met Mike for dinner at Zpizza (no relation to Apizza), a pizza parlor franchise which offers organic tomato sauce and soy cheese options. Their unsweetened iced tea tasted like ass, but they allowed me to pour it out in the soda reservoir and take another drink. Thanks, zpizza!



Mike ate a calzone of some sort and Geoff and I had the Yuppie Veggie sandwich. The veggie sandwiches were pretty grease free, but the calzone had grease to spare. Mike chose to bogart his grease and not share with the rest of us, but he did allow me to immortalize the moment on cellphone camera. (See before and after photos with grease-in-grease shot below.)





Before:






After:

pies and nausea

I spent my Labor (note the lack of u...suck it, Australia) Day weekend doing some Hiking Club-like things. Saturday I made two pies and took them to a potluck. While at the potluck, I ate 7-layer dip, pie, and roughly 3 entire red peppers from the vegetable platter. And chowder. Or chowdah, as I like to say.

Sunday I went to the coast. I got a little green on the boat, especially when Damo started throwing up over the side, but I made it back to town ready to do some eating. We went to Husky's Pub, which was an auspicious name for a HC like event. I ate a burger (sans beetroot, which is in fact as disgusting as it sounds), so I did not maintain my HC credentials, but a guy sitting across from me ate wedges, spring rolls, and fried calamari. It was quite an impressive ingestion of grease in a short time. Then they all went out for ice cream, but I'd been up since 3:15 am and still had 3.5 hours of driving between me and home so I wussed out.

Basically I'm all talk and no action on the eating front, sadly.