Adventures in Food

This is a DragonFruit. Scary, huh?

I was walking through Chinatown today and saw a pile of them sitting on a fruitseller's cart. Remembering Pam's talk yesterday about trying this amazing fruit at the Great Wall, I just stood by the cart and stared for awhile. Now, I wasn't sure if this is what she had or not, but it looked interesting. As I was thinking I ought to be adventurous and expand my fruit repetoire, the vender looked at me said "you want?" I said "how do you eat it". He replied very patiently, this being Sunday and me being just one more caucasion tourist out for a little culinary adventure, "you peel it, like a banana - very sweet". "How bad could it be" I thought and $2 later, I was walking away holding my little dragonfruit, ready for my first taste of mystery fruit.

On the way home with my fruit and several bags of ginger candy, which I have developed a liking for, I passed a "Celebrate Chinatown" street fair. The vendors were mostly for services like healthcare and banking in the neighborhood, so I was more interested in the stores than the fair. I passed a beef jerky store that I have to tell my cousin Woody about. He made it once (and I actually ate it - it really wasn't bad). Right next to the beef jerky store was a dumpling house which claimed their dumplings were just as good as Joe's Shanghai. Next time Kelsey and Jed are in town, we will have to find out for ourselves.

Finally, nearing the end of the festival I started hearing the song "Celebrate" by KC and the Sunshine Band. What they were doing playing this at a Chinese festival I don't know, but following the sound I came to a stage where about 25 older chinese women, lined up in rows all wearing yellow t-shirts were doing some sort of line dance, awkwardly but most enthusiastically dancing to the music. I almost started crying it was so funny.