asian life in north Minneapolis

[mellowtigger]

I've said before that Minnesota has a large Hmong population, particularly in my neighborhood. For instance, the big school nearest my house is the Hmong International Academy, and my representative in Minnesota state government is Hmong descendant Fue Lee. I've also previously mentioned this asian lady a few houses south of me who performs back porch ceremonies with jingling bells. She's at it again today. I looked online but couldn't find what holiday is involved here, so maybe it's something relevant only to their household. I doubt they're 4/20 fans celebrating on April 20th.

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Meanwhile, I thought it would be fun to describe the foods I've sampled since shopping at the Good Deal Oriental Foods grocery after Aldi's disappearance.

Read more about the particular foods...

Stuff I really like:

• sherihon: There's a stalk plant called sherihon (or sher-li-hon) that is absolutely delicious. It's like celery but without the stringy nonsense. I buy it frequently for cooking. I bought some today, and I'm going to try planting a few stalks to see if I can get seeds to use each year during warm weather.
• bok choi: I already knew that I liked eating this plant, but they frequently sell some "baby bok choi" that is even better in my foods. It naturalizes to Minnesota climate, so I already have seeds to use this year.
• galangal: A surprising wonder, galangal is a ginger-like rhizome that is very woody and very inedible by itself. A slice added to cooking rice and then removed later (like a bay leaf), however, adds a wonderful faint citrus odor to the dish. It's a new favorite of mine that enlivens another boring bed of plain rice.

Stuff that's okay:

• seaweed flavored chips: I bought a can of Pringles-style Dragonfly potato chips with seaweed. It's not bad. Very subtle. Not much different from plain chips. I'd buy it again.
• eddoe: This root vegetable looks like a miniature taro root, but I'd say it much more like a tiny potato. Sliced and eaten raw, it definitely has a potato vibe. Cooked, it's not bad either, like a soft potato. I'd rather just use the much larger potato, but eddoe is good in a pinch.
• pomelo: The pomelo is a huge fruit. I bought the Sanlv red pomelo to try it out. Not an easy fruit to like. Even harder to carve than a grapefruit, it's also much tougher to chew. I'll probably never buy one again to eat fresh, and it doesn't work well by itself with ice and water in a smoothie, but there may be ways of turning this fruit into a very good fruit smoothie combo recipe.
• kimchi: My favorite breakfast includes spiced-up fermented cabbage, so I thought I'd experiment and try replacing the sauerkraut and hot sauce with just basic kimchi. I bought a glass jar of Yon's Foods kimchi and tried it. It works, but the texture of the cabbage is wrong. Kimchi vegetables are kept in chunks that do not bite well in a sandwich style. Too much of the food comes out unintentionally on each bite. Shredded sauerkraut performs much better. Their suggested recipe does sound very yummy, though, so I might try that meal another day.

Stuff that I don't care for:

• banan flower: It's just the banana flower before it turns into any kind of fruit. I've found it just to be "meh", nothing special. I can easily live without it. Bananas are a much better use for this plant.
• fried fish skins: A junk food treat like fried pork rinds, I bought an expensive bag of fried fish skins. Not horrible, but certainly not appetizing either. I'm okay with trying it just once in my life.
• shrimp paste: Ugh. I bought Tsabmim's Shrimp Paste Noodle pre-packaged meal just to try something new. I strongly disliked the flavor and almost didn't finish it. It's not for me.

So that's recent life here in the warzone. As I keep telling people who recommend that I leave, this place does have its own unique charms. I'm a big fan of multiculturalism.