relaxedWarren was going through lots of medical tests, so he called me to tell me to do dinner on my own. Diana is now back in school and in class till 11pm, so doing dinner with her was out, and I wasn't feeling bright enough to think of who else might want to get together at random on a Thursday night, so I decided to do some "retail therapy."
First stop: Walmart. Yes, they're politically incorrect. They also, by a long shot, have the best prices on Diet IBC Root Beer, Charmin Ultra 12 double roll 12 packs, and Viva paper towels. They were out of the mega packs of the paper towels so I just bought four rolls. I got the last two packs of Charmin and bought four six-packs of the root beer; even though it had gone up a bit in price, Walmart's price was still the cheapest. I also bought a box of OB Ultra applicator tampons; they were only $2.50 for the box, and I had a coupon for $0.50 off. As my friend Brette from Trex would say, "Good value."
Next stop: Save Mart. I was waffling about going to either TK Noodle and having duck or wonton soup, but what I really craved was chicken soup with kreplach. Kreplach are the Jewish equivalent of wontons, but they're made with beef and are often a bit more oniony. I wasn't in a "pork" mood, and I'd just had duck last night. I also didn't feel like sitting in a restaurant by myself.
Anyhow, I was looking for Frookie Peanut Butter Sandwich cookies. I've been craving them for weeks. I'd bought some a long time ago, but Warren had "put them away" (as in "never to be seen again"). Months later I found them, but by that time the peanut butter in them had gone rancid (eeeuw!). I wasn't sure whether Save Mart might have them, but it was worth a try.
Save Mart didn't have the cookies, but they had PowerBar Pria bars on sale and sugar-free PowerBars. Pria bars are wonderful because they're only 110 calories, and often I only want a little jolt to my blood sugar, not a mini-meal. I bought four Vanilla, four Cookies and Creme, and one each of the sugar free ones (that was all they had left).
Third stop: Whole Foods, Palo Alto. I could have hit the one in Cupertino, but Palo Alto is closer to home and is open later. They also have a cooler selection of miscellaneous foods. Even if they didn't have the peanut butter sandwich Frookies, I figured they'd at least have the soft lime cookies that kick butt that aren't made with refined sugar.
Nope. They had molasses and chocolate-tangerine, but no lime. Damn. They had vanilla and lemon Frookie sandwich cookies, but no peanut butter. They had other sugar-free peanut butter cookies, but they were all the crispy kind with big chunks of peanuts (yuck). I wanted a not-so-crispy sandwich cookie with a creamy filling.
My throat was killing me, and that drove the rest of the shopping run. I opted for a curry potato wrap and a spicy hummus wrap, figuring they'd be easy to swallow and reasonably spicy. I also saw some sesame tofu in the deli area and just had to have some. Even though I have yet to find anything like the sesame tofu I had when I was in Japan in 1986, I still drool like one of Pavlov's dogs when I see those two words together. This stuff was rectangular and brick-like, whereas the stuff in Japan was square, translucent, and gooey -- but was it ever nummy! Anyhow, I bought a small container of the stuff, and the guy behind the counter gave me the sauce for free (he weighed it before adding the sauce). While there, I also picked up some bay leaves, arrowroot, throat spray, and several more boxes of herbal teabags, knowing I'd want a pot tonight.
I drove home, taking the wrong Shoreline Blvd. exit off Central Expressway and heading towards downtown Mountain View. I decided this was fate's way of telling me to check my PO Box, so I did. There were plenty of items, including a card from Mom containing a rather generous amount of "mad money," as she put it. No wonder she called my machine yesterday! Note to self: Call Mom first thing tomorrow.
I got home and half-emptied the car, removing all the perishables. While heating up the two wraps I tried a piece of the tofu. Yum! It wasn't as good a quality of tofu as the stuff I got in Japantown in San Jose, but the sauce kicked butt. I ate around 1/3 of the hummus wrap (it said the thing was "approx. 3.5 servings") and all the potato wrap.
Actually, I tasted the potato wrap first, could hardly taste it, and decided it was time to add Dave's Insanity. That stuff is wicked. I applied a very light glazing of the stuff, and it was so hot my tongue was burning and my eyes were watering. My ears were all blocked up, but my sinuses were opening. It did something. I wound up consuming about an ounce of milk, two teaspoons of ice cream, a glass of wine (my throat was too raw for beer), and half a litre of clear strawberry-kiwi soda.
I hate it when I get "Dave's Insanity" sick. That's what I call it when I am so blocked up I can't taste anything without the addition of that stuff. It's wicked, nasty stuff, even by my standards, and I'm one of those folks with a "cast-iron tongue." You do not ask me if something is "hot" because my metric of "hot" is way off from that of the general American public. I've been known to amaze foreign co-workers with my love -- we're going way beyond tolerance -- of hot, spicy food. It runs in the family. Dad and his mother were that way, and my brother likes hot food -- perhaps the only taste in food we have in common.
OH. Did I mention Dave's Insanity is wicked stuff? :-)
Anyhow, I'm also nicely warmed up and relaxed from the food. Tofu contains almost as much L-Tryptophan as turkey and is a great natural sedative. I also brewed a pot of Celestial Seasonings Almond Sunset and will enjoy some of that with an oversized Mexican Wedding Cake cookie I got from Whole Foods during my last visit there.
Now if only Warren would turn on his cell phone so I could know where he is....
