News

I’ve been walking a lot lately, and not just because the weather is finally behaving.  I’ve been trying to balance the amount of exercise I get with the number of popsicles I have been eating.  This summer was the summer of the the paleta for me.  A paleta is a Mexican popsicle, and I have been quite obsessed with them, to the point where I was eating one a day during the month of August, hence, the new exercise regime.

Greetings from The Land That Time Forgot, also known as Wichita, Kansas. We’ve been a little slow to accept some of them new-fangled things that other towns have had for years. Take bicycles, for instance. We weren’t too sure they’d catch on so we waited a while. Then the other day I noticed an actual bike lane on First Street in the College Hill area. Right there against the curb was the white outline of a bicycle indicating a bike lane. At first I thought it was a crime scene. Like on TV where the police draw a chalk outline around the victim, in this case a bicycle.

If you didn’t already know this, I’m half Asian-- half Filipino, specifically. I grew up eating rice with every meal, fish with heads on, chicken with feet on, fermented things, and every soy product known to man.  My parents are adventurous eaters, so my brother and sister and I ate all kinds of weird stuff from the get-go.  There is no food I won’t try at least once.

I have good news. We are seriously blessed with wonderful Vietnamese food in Wichita.

If you are unfamiliar with Vietnamese cooking, it is easy to like, even for a beginner. It’s fresh and healthy, relying on noodles and rice, small amounts of meat, and lots of vegetables and fresh herbs. Oftentimes raw ingredients will be used to garnish cooked dishes by the diner to her own tastes, so it’s a great cuisine for people who like to play with their food.