Category: Food
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 307 – New PinkBerry
We went to the Mall at Millenia for preview night of the new PinkBerry frozen yogurt shop. For a few hours, they were giving out free frozen yogurt with any toppings. While Michelle stood in line, I browsed around the mall, returning just in time to grab a cup of chocolate yogurt with coconut, dark chocolate crunchies, a waffle cookie crisp wafer thing, and some kiwi. The kiwi tasted oddly bitter, but the rest was quite good. Michelle devoured hers faster than I could even find out what she ordered. I also tried PinkBerry’s new peppermint flavor, debuting at this new location before the rest of the country. It was good for the first bite or two, but got old fast.
I should also note that somewhere along the line I messed up the numbering of these daily photos, so I am fixing it today, the 307th day of the year. I don’t think I missed any days, only mis-numbered them somewhere. And I don’t feel like going back and fixing it.
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 296 – Pumpkin spice scam
I enjoy pumpkin flavored food. Pumpkin pie is fantastic. Michelle’s pumpkin crunch cake is magically delicious. Pumpkin soup from Uno Chicago Grill is comforting. Even pumpkin seeds are quite tasty. But it has now become clear to me that “pumpkin” and “pumpkin spice” are two entirely different things. I recently tried “pumpkin spice” frozen yogurt at Pinkberry and thought it tasted awful, leaving me wondering why I wasn’t tasting any pumpkin flavor, only an overwhelming amount of cinnamon and other spices that are normally mixed with pumpkin to kick it up. Then tonight I tried “pumpkin spice” chocolate bark from Godiva. Again, blech. No pumpkin to be found. Now I was catching on. I read the label and found the dominant ingredients to be cinnamon, ginger, and mono and triglycerides. Then I turned to the package of Jello pudding sitting on our kitchen counter, finding that it was indeed “pumpkin spice” pudding and not “pumpkin” flavored pudding. And sure enough, some of the main ingredients are cinnamon, ginger, and those glycerides.
So what gives? Why do I want to eat food that’s flavored with the same spices that normally season pumpkins, but without the actual pumpkin? Yuck. Maybe next time I want a steak, I should just eat the dry rub and steak sauce by itself, with no actual meat? I won’t be fooled by this “pumpkin spice” nonsense ever again. Now someone get me a pumpkin pie.
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 287 – More food truck fun
The Orlando Food Truck Bazaar continues to be a great time with more than 20 trucks participating now. This time around, I had a chicken and cheese pupusa (from the Pupusas truck) and a Moroccan “smashball” with German potato salad and honey-drizzled chips from the Wicked Wiches truck. Both were great. I followed these up with a few smaller items, fried Venezuelan cheese and a chocolate cake from two other trucks – but those weren’t as good.
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 279 – Chocwave and Snoballimus
During a late night Walmart run, I spotted some extraordinarily silly snack cakes renamed to promote Transformers: Chocwave Shockwave and Snoballimus Optimus Prime. There were Bumblebee Twinkies too, but those didn’t have a “clever” name. And no, I didn’t buy them. Yuck.
365 Adventures in 2011: Day 277 – Food and Wine Time
After skipping the always crowded first weekend, Michelle and I enjoyed a trip around the World Showcase for the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival. There are a lot of great new items to try this year, and a few that aren’t so great. But in the end I left stuffed and look forward to going back to try a few more, as I only ate a small percentage of the many dishes that are available.
Food review and photos here.
