Weekend before Mid-Autumn Festival

Burl and I are downstairs playing. He has been checking out the big pink box of cars and trucks.

Yesterday we all drove downtown to the cake and cookie district at San Min Road to pick up Ryan's Mid Autumn gift from school. He got to choose from regular moon cakes - the traditional gift, grape seed oil (something we've chosen the last few years and of which we still have several bottles), or ice cream cake. Ryan wisely opted for the ice cream cake.

So we were waiting for the recycling truck - which never came because they are on some kinda pre-holiday holiday. Mid Autumn Festival is one of the big 3 holidays on the Chinese calendar - a harvest celebration. Anyway, the ice cream cake is not one cake but 6 beautifully packaged hand-sized cakes. How do they taste, these innovative little guys? Not great. Let's just say, there is no chocolate, no crunchy cookie layer, no cream even. Without those fundamental ingredients, there's still a chance (slim) that it would be ok. However, my main objection lies with the "cake" part which is made of tasteless, rubbery gelatinous rice. There is no ice cream, the rice surrounds a very nice sorbet; lychee, mango or honeydew. Chewy. I just can't get past the cake part - not my kinda comfort food.

The preferred textures of food in Asia pretty much encompass all the textures which I find revolting. Things that are gooey, chewy, intestiney or organ-like are the bomb here. Not for me. I was talking to an American who had lived in Japan and he said the same thing about textures adding that Japanese food has very little flavor (hence soy sauce, wasabi etc), it's all about texture, even though Japanese people talk about flavor all the time. Made me think of synesthesia! Maybe the obdurately chewy texture of raw squid tastes like Duke Ellington!