Monthly Archives: August 2009

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

Posted on by bruleeblog

Does your food taste better when you eat it with a great view?

During our trip we took a bus and walking tour of the Grand Canyon with Grand-Adventures.com. Yes, it’s better to drive there yourself and stay overnight, but with limited time and a desire not to spend 10+ hours driving all day, I was pleased to find this tour. Each group is small and you travel in a large van instead of a big tour bus. You get a personal experience and a guide, with stops at the Hoover Dam overlook, Route 66 (Seligman, Arizona – the town that inspired the one in the movie Cars), and a 3 hour walking tour in the Grand Canyon. And food is included – breakfast is at McDonald’s, where I tried out a McCafé sweet tea, and lunch is fruit, cheese, crackers, cookies and an Arby’s Market Fresh sandwich.

So tell me, does life get any better when you eat this:

Arbys Market Fresh sandwich

Arby's Market Fresh sandwich

while sitting on rocks and looking at this:

The Grand Canyon, south rim

The Grand Canyon, south rim

Thanks for a fabulous day Darryl!

Unidentified flying fruit

Posted on by bruleeblog

When you’re trying to be good and eat all your fruits and vegetables, you can get bored with eating the same things over and over. Recently, I’ve been trying new fruit.

My absolute favourite new fruit is the donut peach. Also called a saucer peach (as in flying saucers), they look like peaches that have been smushed. Inside, the flesh is white with a tinge of pink. The taste is sweeter and more delicate than a regular peach, and I’m finding that I like them so much better than regular peaches. The flesh is also really delicate, so you have to be careful when handling them or picking them out in the grocery store. They’re more expensive than regular peaches as well, so make sure you budget for them!

donut peach

donut peach

Another fruit that I’ve tried recently is the red pear. The bright skin caught my eye in the grocery store, and I couldn’t resist picking up a couple. The taste was… well it was like a pear, except that the texture was slightly less gritty. Given that these were more expensive than other pears, I probably wouldn’t pick them up again. They sure are bright and pretty though.

red pear

red pear

Sweet tooth in Vegas

Posted on by bruleeblog

Many years ago, someone gave me a piece of Ferrara Pan‘s Atomic FireBall candy. They’re blazing hot cinnamon jawbreakers, and they’re incredibly hard to find here (and if you do they’re not cheap).

The first full day in Vegas, we took a quick trip to a Smart & Final store, a warehouse Costco-style store that doesn’t require a membership. Along with drinks and a giant box of granola bars, I excitedly grabbed a giant 200 count countain of Atomic FireBalls for about $13 US. It took up a huge chunk of space in my suitcase, but the case is going to last me forever.

Atomic FireBalls

Atomic FireBalls

They also had jars of Lemonheads, but I didn’t want to buy quite that much of a candy that I hadn’t tried before. Instead, at a candy store in the airport, I picked up a few different candies to nibble on while waiting for my flight home.

Vegas candy

Vegas candy

(Sorry about the dry hands! )

The Lemonhead was definitely sour, but I think I prefer the Japanese Nobel Super Lemon candy as that one is much more mouth puckering. Atkinson’s Peanut Butter Bar was like sucking on a piece of peanut butter if it came in a hard form. The Bit-O-Honey is a honey flavoured taffy that has teeny tiny bits of almond embedded in it. It was okay but not as good as the other two candies.

It was interesting to try some new candy (well, new to me at any rate), but I’m more than satisfied with my giant jar of Atomic FireBalls and do not regret refraining from buying large quantities of any other candy.