The foody post

There were some memorable meals on my US sojurn. In Menlo Park (which is close to San Francisco but is a whole other place) I had the best Indian takeaways I've tasted. Really. They probably came from Palo Alto, nearby. We went on the beautiful drive to Napa Valley, via Pete's coffee in Berkley (I was so spoilt!). We saw a beautiful olive oil shop in St Helena, up the highway from Napa. They had tiny cubes of bread and little bowls for tasting. Lovely infused oils and vinegars. It was lots of fun tasting them all. Almost every store seemed to have a 'help wanted' sign. Plenty of jobs going......
This is my very decadent chocolate kahluah cheesecake, enjoyed at the end of a long lunch with fleagirl. Couldn't eat it all. You must go visit her and read about the tour of the San Francisco seafood spots that she took me on. It was a great day, we laughed a lot. (I'll tell you more about the people later, they need a post of their own!).

I had some great diner breakfasts in New York. Dreadful coffee, as everyone warned me, but some great eggs and bacon and fried potato things. I love going out for breakfast. In New York there was also dinner in china town, in a restaurant that had a little english on the menu in it's window. Lots of fun, plenty of stories and laughter, and the best tofu I've ever had. It was perfectly silky, with chilli flakes, and just the right amount of green! We had a sweet and sour pork dish, and beautiful, beautiful eggplant and peppers stuffed with a shrimp mixture. It was fantastic.Look, I found some crab in New York! This was a sneaky picture taken at Whole Foods in Chelsea, New York (near the quilt store). They had cheap NZ Lamb in there. I thought the store was beautiful, but it wasn't organic produce like I know it. The organic fruits and veges looked very processed to me, I'm used to associating organic with produce that looks like it came off a tree in the backyard. Lumpy and bumpy and irregular, like it ought to grow. They had a beautiful bakery, but it was the crab that was hard to resist.

I had a hot-dog from a stand in Central Park. It felt kindof compulsory. It was dreadful! I had a hamburger in a cafe which was huge and delicious. I did have some good coffee in a french cafe near Washington square, and I managed not to set foot in a Starbucks. Oops, no, that's not true, I went to one in the Rockerfeller centre. Far too busy with far too much to do to spend much time sitting still in cafes or restaurants. I did rip an apple cake recipe out the New York Times in a cafe at JFK airport though. I hope no-one noticed.