Recommended Treats

I almost forgot to post today. Yikes. Only a couple of days and I’m already starting to slip. Anyway, here are some treats that I’ve tried recently that I liked.

Costco’s Chocolate Banana Cream Pie – $9.99

Last night some friends from my office came over to see the baby and treat N. and me to home-cooked okonomiyaki. The okonomiyaki had bacon, eggs, cabbage, green onion, and a little bit of cheese in it and was delicious topped with benito flakes, dried seaweed, tonkatsu sauce, and Kewpie mayonnaise.

Anyway, my friends really outdid themselves and took care of all of the okonomiyaki ingredients (and even did the dishes!) and so I wanted to contribute something to the evening. I bought this Chocolate Banana Cream Pie that had caught my eye at my local Costco.

It was SO good. It has a graham cracker crust and layers of chocolate and banana mousse topped with chocolate sauce. It seems like some cream pies have texture issues with their fillings; they can be too soft and it’s like eating plain whipped cream. But this one was just dense enough and wonderfully creamy. And the flavors were delicious. Anyway, if you see one of these at your Costco, I would recommend getting it. Although, you might want to have company over to share it because it is HUGE.

See’s Awesome Walnut Square Bars – about $8 for a box of 8

N. received a box of these from one of his coworkers for Christmas. They are SO good. They’re basically a grown-up version of a Snickers bar. I’m a sucker for anything with caramel in it; and the caramel in these is rich and buttery. Walnuts aren’t even my favorite type of nuts, but they are super good in these with the caramel and the dark chocolate. Anyway, I feel bad for N: since mid-December these have sitting on the kitchen counter calling my name. Now there are only two left! I’ve generously decided to let N. have them (they were his present, after all). But if he doesn’t eat them soon then the deal’s off!

Reading: Scott Pilgrim Volumes 1-4

I received a lot of fun books, CDs, and DVDs for Christmas this year. I’ll try and post about things as I finish them. N. gave me volumes 1-4 of Brian Lee O’Malley’s comic series Scott Pilgrim. I just finished reading them and enjoyed them a lot. They’re a really fun read. Basically, it’s an action/romance: Scott meets his dream girl and has to fight her evil exes to win the privilege of dating her. It’s drawn in the style of Japanese manga. The narration incorporates some post-modern touches such as characters’ awareness that they’re in a comic and video game conventions (during fights characters level up and gain extra lives), etc… that work well with the story. Over all, the books are fun and sweet without being too precious.

One person who did NOT like Scott Pilgrim was N.’s grandpa. Grandpa was in town last week and stayed with us for a couple of days. I had left volume 2 on the kitchen table and one morning Grandpa started reading it over his breakfast of FiberOne.

Grandpa didn’t think that the story made a lot of sense (perhaps due to his beginning with volume 2), and he was scandalized by the book’s only love scene. I believe his exact words were “she was in her panties and he was patting her nudie bottom!”

I think it was this page he stopped at.

So, Grandpa=not a Scott Pilgrim fan. Stay tuned next week for his take on Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut!