Bring on the unusual...

Poor neglected blog.  I still love you, even though I have been ignoring you for awhile, in the meantime eating up a storm with friends.  I think I forget to take photos when I see the food and just dig in, not remembering to snap one until it is too late.  A very memorable 4th of July weekend was spent at a return trip to Burma Superstar (with more vegan friends), the Counter in Palo Alto (their veggie burger is actually vegan, must try to replicate this at home!), a take-out trip to the famous Falafel's Drive-in in San Jose (where we ran into Mr. & Mrs. Cupcake of all people), and then a lovely afternoon drinking vino and lying in the grass at a beautiful winery in Livermore.

What I do have pictures of are some of the more unusual things I've tried lately.  S & I went to the Berkeley Farmers' Market and saw these:

Fresh chickpeas!  Neat, huh!  They are fascinating looking, individually wrapped by nature, each delicate pod housing one green, sweet, nutty chickpea.  They tasted a bit like peas, actually, and would be wonderful in a salad; although, as my in-laws have taught me to say, this would entail a lot of patschke-ing around.  And since my summer kitchen facilities are less than optimal and my available time to cook short, I resisted purchasing them.

Another unusual item I tried (actually for the second time) is 팓빙수, patbingsu.

Yes it was as big as it looks in the photo.  This is what you call a delicious abomination.  It shouldn't be good but it is: shaved ice milk slathered in artificial strawberry syrup, topped with kiwis, strawberries, canned pineapple, banana small bits of mochi, chocolate syrup, vanilla syrup, sweet red beans, and ice cream.  There's a cute Korean sandwich shop/cafe near my building that also sells patbingsu.  It wasn't as good as the first one I tried in the South Bay, but it was pretty good and lots of fun to eat a mishmash of tastes that shouldn't go together, but do.