Breakfast with Mama & Papa Harrell, Steve, and Rosemary

I'm very thankful for the wonderful people I have in my life. It always makes me even happier to meet my friends' relatives, significant others, and friends and find that they are great people as well.

A few weeks ago, on Friday, 10/29/10, my dear friend from my undergrad years at Cal, Steve, invited me to his house because he and his girlfriend, Rosemary, were visiting his home, which happens to be about half an hour away from where I currently live and just five minutes from where I go sometimes for school (for practicum). Do I want to eat delicious homemade food and spend some time with some of the nicest, most interesting people I've ever met? OF COURSE! You know me...great people + great food = FUN times. Thank you, thank you, Steve, Rosemary, and Mama & Papa Harrell. :)

Mama Harrell served some homemade hot cider. It smelled heavenly, and there were real cinnamon sticks in the cider! How can you beat that?


Even my water was fancied up! My cider is next to it.


Healthy-ish waffle (made of whole wheat flour or something) and raspberry/orange cream cheese-stuffed French toast (the bread was made of flax seed, which made this more healthy) made by Mama Harrell (amazing!!! soooo delicious). Papa Harrell helped too!


Fresh fruit salad, consisting of mostly (if not all) fresh fruit (the raspberries had JUST been picked) from farmers or neighbors down the street. Pretty awesome!


Our dessert that night after a delicious feast of German beef, vegetables, rice, and mashed potatoes (Sorry..no pics of dinner) = Crepes with fresh raspberries and whipped cream:


My only complaint about breakfast was that I had to rush off soon after we had finished because I had class/a research team meeting that day back on campus, so I went to that and then went back to Steve's for dinner, DOMINOES, crepes, and good conversation. :D What a day!

Pho Saigon

Pho Saigon
1450 University Avenue
Riverside, CA 92507

10/23/10

I love pho...and was so happy when Catherine and other people in our program wanted to eat some too! Lisa, one of my classmates, loves getting these fried wonton cream cheese things at Asian places, and I honestly had never even known about them before I met her. haha I've seen them sold here, at Pick Up Stix, and Panda Express. Weird! They're good though.

My pho: Good, but I've had better. lol Reminds me of that line from Liar, Liar. I won't describe the conversation here. You just can't beat pho from the shady areas of Fresno. :P They're safer during the day, of course.

Kozy Shack's Pumpkin Pudding/Pie Filling

I talk about Kozy Shack's rice pudding all of the time (all because of my friend, Gail, who introduced me to it!), and their plain chocolate pudding and tapioca pudding are good too, so I got really excited to see that they make a pumpkin-flavored pudding too.

Oh, man. True pumpkin lovers (that is, those of us who love the flavor of pumpkin--not necessarily mixed in with a bunch of spices), this pudding is pretty dang good. I have to warn you, though, that if you don't like the canned pumpkin taste, I'm gonna bet you won't like this. I actually didn't even like this the first time I took a bite, but I think it's because it didn't taste like what I had expected it to taste like. It's weird how something that doesn't meet your expectations can throw you off...like how I don't like the idea eating of savory crepes or sweet couscous (see my sweet couscous experiment here). They're just not what I'm used to!


I know this picture below is tiny, but the original-sized picture was gross 'cause I took a picture of a spoonful above the messy-looking container...so I cropped it.

Pumpkin + Cheesecake Froyo

Yogurtland
Various locations.

Sorry. Been busy with school. I've missed updating though!

They had run out of plain pumpkin yogurt, so I had to get the mix of pumpkin and its neighbor flavor, cheesecake (they usually have two flavors per flavor section with a mixed option in between them). I also got my favorite flavor on the side (plain tart!) with a few mochi balls.

This picture is sideways, but I don't care. SO YUMMY!!! I also need to post about Kozy Shack's pumpkin pudding/pie filling and Dreyer's Slow-Churned Pumpkin Ice Cream. Mmm...pumpkin heaven.