From Farm to Table, From Table to Fork, From Fork to Mouth

On June 18th my mom told me that a reporter wanted to eat dinner with me, but I didn't know why she wanted to. So I said, "Eh, OK." But then my mom was so excited and said, "Wow, that's so exciting!" She always gets excited about big events.

The reporter asked me to pick a restaurant. I wanted to try cactus. But nobody could find it in a restaurant. So then I wanted swordfish. Then I wanted to look at different restaurants that I'd never been to. I had it narrowed down to two restaurants -- HoQ and a vegetarian place.

HoQ won out because 100 percent of the foods at the other place were vegetarian, which isn't a bad idea, but I wanted to eat some meat in my meal. So HoQ won 51 to 49. It was close. I liked HoQ because it is farmers' food that comes from their farms. I thought it was interesting because it said it was "farm to table" and I didn't know what that meant but it sounded cool.

It was scheduled for a Wednesday but a photographer was sick so I had to have dinner with the reporter on the next Tuesday, July 2.

HoQ restaurant, East Village, Des Moines

So when I went there I thought HoQ meant Home of Queens, or Henry or Quilt, or Home or Quit. So when we got there, we were there first. I sat down at the table and I almost broke a cup, but then I saved it. My mom got really nervous.

Des Moines Register food reporter Jennifer Miller and Mazy

Photographer Bill Niebergall and Mazy

Pickled baby carrots starter

Then three minutes later the reporter got there and she said, "I don't have to guess who you are. You're Mazy." And she was correct. Her name is Jennifer and she is 50. She is a reporter for The Daily Bugle. Just kidding, I mean The Des Moines Register. She does eating reporting -- she writes about food I think! And other kinds of breaking news. Note: that was almost my title for this review -- Breaking News!

Then a photographer came and I had to do all these poses that I didn't like doing for him to take pictures. And I didn't like doing poses because you have to do so many, and I'm bad at smiling. But my mom says I'm not. But I am. And then the photographer named Bill didn't order anything because he was going to a baseball game, and was going to eat hotdogs there.

 Iowa Cheese Plate appetizer

Bread with pickled vegetables

OK, for an appetizer I tried to order a duck liver spread but it was out, very sadly. I wanted to try it because it sounded interesting. I tried liver before and it is awesome! Then I ordered the cheese plate and my favorite kind of cheese was the aged gouda. The cheeses were from Iowa and I made a mistake and now this is why I do not like blue cheese .... "Breaking News! Mazy Hanson ate a gigantic piece of blue cheese and it was not good tasting!! That's your daily highlight. See the details tonight at 8 p.m.!" It did not taste very good to me. But I do like aged gouda and it came with bread and bean sprouts and a strawberry. The strawberry was sun ripened and that made it sweet and juicy.

 Jennifer and Mazy discuss cheese

Bill photographs Mazy's entree -- Braised Beef

After that, I ordered Praised Beef. Wait. I don't think that's right. What was it called? Oh yeah, it was BRAISED Beef. It was grass-fed beef, organic zucchini, and snow pea risotto. I chose that dish because I was interested in it. Jennifer got the duck and my mom, aka Keesia, got sockeye salmon. The food came fancy. It was fancy because the plate was like big and it just looked fancy to me the way they arranged the food.

 Sockeye Salmon

I tried eating a whole piece of beef at once. I don't know why but I was hungry and Bill tried taking a picture of me doing it, and it fell off right as he was done taking the picture. It tasted good, besides the fat, because I don't like fat. It tasted tender and then it like was chewy, and there was a little punch. A punch in the face -- of flavor! But a good one, not a bad one. It tasted good. I did not like the risotto because it tasted like potatoes, to me. That's my opinion. If you ever try it, you can have a different opinion. I also ate a lot of my mom's sockeye salmon. I really liked it because it was, again, tender and a meaty taste and the bumpy texture in some parts and smooth and the dryness tasted good in my mouth. And the texture was very good. And I tried the duck. I liked the duck. I thought it tasted like sausage. It was crunchy, too.

We talked to the chef for a little bit, but then he had to go do his job. I learned that HoQ standed for "Hoque" -- his last name. But they did HoQ because HoQue would sound kind of weird. We talked about a little bit of fat in steak is good, but when there's a whole bunch of fat and it's mostly fat, then it's disgusting. I figured out what farm to table meant. It means the food comes from a farm in Iowa and it ends up at the table. I like the concept because my grandpa is a farmer!

We didn't order dessert because the waiter said that the chef was preparing something special for us. It was some ice cream that tasted like egg nog, which was like really good because it was creamy and I really like egg nog. I drink it a lot at Thanksgiving. It was Mad Dog Vanilla ice cream, which is what tasted like egg nog, and then they had strawberries, which tasted kind of juicy and the ice cream went good with it because it was something juicy with something really sweet. I can describe the dessert in two words: cold and sweet. Or simpler: delicious! Or even simpler: yum-yum in my tum-tum! I really liked it.

 Homemade vanilla ice cream over strawberry shortcake

And then we took a video and then we said bye to the reporter. We will hopefully see her again soon. Probably at a sushi restaurant, Wasabi something.

Q&A about the experience
Mom: So what did you think about being interviewed by a reporter?
Mazy: Awesome!
Mom: Why was it awesome?
Mazy: Because I want other kids to know that being an adventurous eater is a special thing. There's a million foods to try and you could try all of them. Any more questions?
Mom: Do you have any predictions about what might be in the newspaper article she writes?
Mazy: My funny story! You were like, "Uh oh." when I said I was going to tell her a funny story. Why did you do that? Why did you not want me to say it?
Mom: Because I didn't know what funny story you might be telling....
Mazy: Which one did you think it was going to be?
Mom: I honestly had no idea what you might be saying...
Mazy: OK, folks. That's all. That's all for probably the specialest review I will be doing in awhile. Remember, eat, eat, eat, healthy, healthy, healthy. Done.

Note from Mom: An article about Mazy's dinner with Register reporter Jennifer Miller is expected to be published on Wednesday, July 17, in the Iowa Life section of the Des Moines Register.

My Own Food Review Festival

On Sunday I went to the World Food Fest. We had to walk down a big hill and it was a long way. And the very first thing I had was a jalapeno wrapped up in bacon. It tasted delicious because there was cheese inside the jalapeno. It wasn't really spicy and the bacon tasted good because it was wrapped around a jalapeno. Two things that are pretty weird together but that taste really good. Who would sell a bacon-wrapped jalapeno at the store or make them at your house and sell them at a lemonade stand?

There are pretty unusual foods at the food festival. Then I tried the Bacon Explosion -- it was awesome! It was sausage with bacon around the edges and it tasted so awesome because the sausage tasted really good, I don't know what kind it was. And the bacon was cooked really crunchy and I liked that a lot.

Then we started walking around and we went up to the front and went to a stand with something that was called Chocolate Soup. It was a Philippine restaurant. I got a yummy kind of noodles. I don't remember all the ingredients, but I think it had chicken and peas and little noodles, like stringy noodles. Pretty thin. They tasted good. I tried a bite of the "Chocolate Soup" and my mouth started catching on fire because it was so hot, not spicy hot, just hot hot. Mom should have told me before I had it! So I almost spit it out, but I kept chewing and swallowed it. And it turns out that it was not even chocolate soup at all. It was pork blood soup!! What an evil trick my mom played on me. It didn't taste that good but the only part that I really liked was the rice with it. The marriage rice? Oh, the jasmines rice. It tasted good. I don't know why they would make blood soup. To be unique or something? It's not like something at a hamburger place. Well, that's why I'm an adventurous eater. I will not be having blood soup again. Just to remind you, it could burn off your tongue.

 Then we went back to the bacon place again. Because Bobo, my brother, wanted to get a bacon explosion again. Or "exploding meat" as he calls it... I wanted one, too. So Mom got each of us one. Should I tell them about how you left me? (Mom's note: I did not leave them. I could see them the entire time I was in line for their marshmallows!)

OK, so she told us to stay on the sidewalk while we were eating and she went over to Tammy's Tarts, or something like that. She came back with some marshmallows. Some awesome-tasting marshmallows! Bo got banana flavored. Mom got Kahlua flavored. And I got raspberry. I asked to taste the Kahlua-flavored one and it tasted like chocolate and sweet and good, very awesome. I wish I could have had all of it. And the raspberry was also awesome. It really tasted like raspberry, kind of like the dentist's raspberry fluoride. It was pretty good. The marshmallows were served two on a stick and they heated them. I even thought that I saw a guy with a cowboy hat on at the tart place. Oh, Mom just said the marshmallows were not at the tart place. They were next door to it.

 

 Then we went to the Ethiopian place for my dad's wot. Then we went over to Taco Loco and we got some $1 taste tacos -- they were awesome! They had chicken, cilantro, which I like, and onions, which really added flavor. They were awesome! So I got two of them. And they have this kind of pop called Jaritos and Bo got Mandarin and I got Pineapple. I still have my Pineapple, it's not gone.

Whispers: Mom, let me go look in the fridge. It might be in there. Mom, do you know where it is? I think it's on the porch. I'll go check. 

The drink tasted (takes a drink) good. It was 100 percent natural sugar so it was all natural sugar. And the pop is pretty good. I'm going to have my mom have a taste. And then you say if you like it. Mom: "Yeah, it's pretty good. Very sweet."

So do they mean 100 percent sugar? Or 100 percent natural sugar? Or is it 100 percent azucar natural? That's what it says on the Spanish side. Instead of pineapple it says "pina" and "hecho en mexico" instead of "made in Mexico."

My mom got my dad a burrito at the Mexican place and then we went to get dessert. Bo got kettle corn and I got a Snickerdoodle Ice Cream Sandwich. It tasted good. The ice cream was vanilla and the cookie was sweet on the top. They had some different flavors. I think I should have got the spicy chocolate chip. Hopefully they will have it at the farmers market so I can get it there.

And then Superman came and pushed the earth sideways. Oh just kidding. If that happened then we'd probably turn and fall into space because if we were sideways we'd fall up. I mean we'd fall sideways and trees would go by you and then you'd go into the Indian Ocean and then you'd go by it and into space.

Anyway, back to the review. Then we made our way back and we bought a caramel apple from Stam's Chocolate Place. We ate the apple tonight. And it tasted good, very good. It was a green Granny Smith apple -- the best kind for a caramel apple. That's what the original ones were anyways. I think I know why they make it with them, the sour apple goes good with the sweet stuff.

I think that's about it. Oh wait, one more thing, the caramel apple had chocolate on it too, which really added more sweetness which isn't really good for you. I asked my mom to peel off the chocolate and the caramel part so I could just eat the apple. I like sour a lot but not everyone does. That's why I'm not a picky eater and that's all for today.

*****

Mazy's 4-year-old brother Bo had this to say about the World Food Fest:

Q: Can you describe the different foods you ate?
A: Popcorn. The one at the food festival. It was da-lishus.

Q: What else did you eat?
A: The jalapeno!! It was da-lishuss. It had all this meat and jalapeno right in it. And bacon. It was good because it had all the crunchy part in it. We need bacon, right now.

Q: What else?
A: Uh, exploding meat! It was kind of weird. It tasted ... Funky. And it tasted da-lisshus too! Mom, where's the "f" in funky? I want it to be a big "f"! I ate ice cream sandwich. I'm just joking. Mazy ate that. I ate marshmallows! Mine were banana. They were so da-lishus! I want to say stuff I did NOT eat. I wanted the bacon to eat! I ate bacon. And it was so kind of, awesome. I got orange pop.

Q: Tell me what else we saw at the food festival?
A: Umm, tell me what letter it starts with.

Q: Well, just try to remember some stuff we saw. 
A: There were no like, french fries at the food festival. Why they not have any french fries? Cause they don't like french fries. Someday I will be a french fry. What would happen if you ate a french fry instead of a bomb? You would explode!

Q: Is there anything else you want to tell people?
A: I did not eat the zombie hamburger. Because it was just, expensive. I didn't eat the blood soup, but I ate the rice.

From the Archives: Good Times

Originally published February 25, 2012

Today we went to Quinton's Deli and Bar in the East Village in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. The Iowa Capitol is near the East Village. I wanted to eat at a sushi place but it was closed. We originally wanted to eat at The Latin King, but it was also closed. So we chose Quinton's Deli and Bar.

Grandma Katy, me, Bo, Keesia and Shawn were there. The first thing we ate was chips and salsa. I wasn't a really big fan of them but I was still really hungry so I ate a lot. I didn't like it because the salsa  wasn't good enough for me and I didn't like the chips because they were just normal chips. I originally wanted hotwings for lunch but then I saw this gigantic sandwich and I said, "Oh yeah, I want this." So Grandma Katy offered to buy hotwings for another appetizer instead. The hotwings were very spicy. The breading was very delicious. And I liked the meat inside.

My sandwich was big!! And it was so big that it had to have toothpicks to hold it together! It was a club sandwich, they have lots of kinds of stuff in them. I can't remember everything in mine because there was so much stuff -- like lettuce, tomatoes, meat, bacon, mayo. The sandwich tasted great! I ate only one-half. It came with chips, and I ordered the spicy chips. I also ate some french fries. And then everybody was getting full so we left eventually. Oh, my drink was Diet Coke. Again.

 

The restaurant food took so long that I was about to say to give it a thumb's down! But then I tasted the food and I was like, "This has gotta be a thumb's up!" I was so hungry that day I ate hotwings, tortilla chips, spicy chips and half of my sandwich. I ate the rest the next day. And that's all.

Restaurant Rating: Thumbs Up

You should go to Quinton's in the East Village, Des Moines, Iowa, and beware, the food takes so long you might want to leave. I gave it a thumb's up because of how the food tasted. And that's all folks!