Omnivorous

One of the pleasures of travel for me is eating everything interesting that comes across my path. I thought you might be interested in seeing the things I brought home from the market a few days ago. Starting at the top and going clockwise, there's taro chips, dragonfruit, rice cookies, some kind of coconut milk and sweet fruit custard wrapped in pandanus leaves, sweet sticky rice and banana wrapped in some other kind of leaf, a dumpling-like savory of greens in a rice wrapper, and peanuts with roasted kaffir lime leaves. All were very tasty, although I have to say that dragonfruit looks a lot more exciting than it tastes (I mean, it's good but not so extravagant as you might imagine).

It's nice that this sort of exotic fare counts as eating locally right now. Speaking of, I'm finally getting around to reading Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma," and am currently completely appalled by the ridiculousness and non-sustainability of the food industry in the U.S. I've been coming to realize over the last few years that processed food is very sketchy, and now I see why. Anyone who is interested in anything to do with agricultural systems, the evils of high fructose corn syrup, or finding out if you are what you eat....definitely pick this book up. The part about the Chicken McNugget was particularly eye-opening.