Bon Appetit!

 Warning:  If you are pregnant or otherwise given to queasiness, STEP AWAY FROM THE BLOG!  If at any time you experience light headedness, please put on your own air mask first before attempting to help someone else.

We have a large Japanese 4 story department store in our neighborhood.  The lower level is a massive grocery full of all manner of gastronomicities like this dried fish.  Jerked, if you will.

I found this in the snack section of our go to shopping stop--a French store, Carrefour.  It was right next to the potato chips which I could identify. One of these days, we'll try these.  Or not.

Street food!  Let's see--upper left hand is a massively available fruit about the size of a basketball.  The paint brushes are for lathering spices on the teeny tiny speckled eggs which you see cooking on the little adorable grill.

Walmart!!  This place is unbelievable.  I have to stand outside the door and repeat all manner of affirmations before I enter.  I'm OK as long as I steer clear of the meat section which is vast and mysterious.  Oh, that my sense of smell was not so super human ever loving keen...

Chicken feet you can dive into the second they're paid for!  Steamy and hot!  Spiced the way Grandma does!

Or you can start from scratch...ha ha.  I'm still waiting for those recipes I requested on facebook.  Perhaps a contest is in order.  The good news here is that these feeties (unlike 99% of the meat for sale on the street) are on ice!

Meanwhile, back on the street, the WHOLE experience awaits the truly daring.  At a school banquet the other night, Liam from Ohio--a strapping young 23 year old--picked out what he said was the chicken's wattle out of a dish on the lazy Susan in the center of our table.  I could not argue.

This was actually pretty good--if not a little gristley.  Because we are in the Sichuan Province, all our food comes enormously spiced.  This street food was no exception.  We see this EVERYWHERE.

Melisa at church sent this home for us--straight from her Cake Bible.  Eating it has now become one of my Top 5 Most Pleasurable Mortal Experiences.

Drum-cooked yams!!!  A little premature because we're still in the 80 temps here.  Chestnuts available now too.

Okay, take a break if you need to,  but aren't they artistically arranged?

Yumm!  Really!  I'm going to find out what to call them from a Chinese friend and make these at home!  Note the red hot spices ever at the ready!

"You go, Girl!  And nice moon/star slippers!"

Spam weiner thingies on a stick, more of those gristley things, a nice assortment!  Take note, Etcheverrys and cheerleaders.

Roasted bamboo on a skewer!  Go ahead!  Embrace your inner panda!

A bird?  Perhaps one who walked around on spindly legs???  I see a neck, a beak...

Rice gnoshing.  Essential ingredient in a plethora of treats.

Fruit.  Massive.  Requires a machete to navigate it.  Tastes sort of like a pithy pineapple.  I have a theory that some of these fruits and vegetables are reported to have aphrodisiac qualities, so their inherent unwieldiness is tolerated.

Good old cotton candy!  Isn't it beautiful???

Sponge Bob?

The true Sichuan secret herbs and spices...

A Burger King knock-off.  Actually, the burger places are the scariest of all for me.  And KFC?  No, thank you.  I'll be back another time.  Wipe that salivation off the keyboard and go drown your jealous sorrows in a pb & j...We can't all eat like emperors, right?