Up, Up To the Skies

I sat down to write but Pete was watching Tina Nordström make a perch and sausage soup on PBS' Perfect Day. Nordström was so light and charming and pronounced kayak as one hard syllable, and next thing I knew it was twenty minutes later. She was on New Scandinavian Cooking, where she was simply fabulous. Once, she cheerfully cooked moose stew in the ice hotel. While I couldn't relate, culturally, I gave her a lot of credit for having confidence the roof wouldn't cave in.

Months ago, my favorite Asian market closed to move to the next town. Signs in the windows at the new location said Coming Soon! as it got later and later. I felt positively stricken. When Pete decided to try a gluten-free diet, I mentally scanned the shelves at the Asian market and pouted. As Grandma used to growl, "Tempis was fugiting." Today, we saw balloons and carts outside the store, grabbed a cart and made a break for the door.

It was heavenly. The building itself was about the same size as the old one, but cleaner, brighter and much, much better organized. The produce section made sense and lacked that this is what you get, goddammit ambience that made shopping the old produce aisles an act of defiance. One whole aisle is stocked floor to ceiling with rice varieties, and another offers a truly luxurious selection of noodles. The placement of the freezer cases close to the bakery counter made it impossible to examine about one-quarter of the frozen foods. I didn't have to get to that corner to know there were still too few vegetarian dimsum to choose from, and the kind I love wasn't in the case. Even so, the selection of shumai was exciting. I wanted to look at everything. Seeing the small percentage of items I did made me want to lie down for an hour. Being happy is exhausting! I knew that, but now I'm tired and have cellophane noodles.

In the car again, I sighed a few times.

Tata: I'm so relieved. I felt like I was cooking around holes in my grocery list.
Pete: Me, too.
Tata: No banana leaves.
Pete: Two different kinds of ducks!

Yup. Still no moose.