Long Night in Iowa

On Saturday I went to the corn feed. The corn feed is when my dad's family has a big supper party thing. They serve a lot of American foods, sometimes interesting, sometimes plain. There are a lot of varieties of food.

It's called the corn feed because there's corn at it. They cook the corn in a big pot in the driveway and the ring bologna gets cooked with the corn too. There were over 100 people there and a lot of relatives and friends were invited.

Now let's get on to the foods!

The first food I got was some sesame meatballs made by somebody. The meatballs were OK. They were sort of good but they were a little bit mushy. And next was moussaka -- it was my mom's delicious dish. It's a mystery food -- I don't want to tell you. You have to comment on this post before I tell you.

Next I got my grandma's chicken and noodles, and it tasted really good, as always. The noodles were handmade. The chicken was good tasting, too. Then I ate my uncle Brian's smoked jalapeños with cheese and bacon on it. The jalapeño was a tiny bit spicy and the cheese was cream cheese, and that was good. And then they had some bacon on the top and that made it WAYYYY better.

Then I ate my Aunt Sandy and Aunt Denise's egg roll with sweet chili sauce, which went well with the crunchy, meatiness and vegetableness of the egg roll, and the spicy mustard sauce was good tasting too. They made the egg rolls and didn't buy them at a Chinese restaurant. I tried their crab rangoon, too, and it tasted really good to me.

I was at a corn feed but I didn't eat the corn. I guess I forgot about it.

After I got my foods, I went to the dessert table to get my desserts. I got chocolate-covered strawberries made by my Aunt Leslie. The flavors were sort of like sweet and creamy for the chocolate and then the juicy sweet of the strawberries. They tasted good together.

Then for the rest of the night I was horsing around, playing games and that was my epic corn feed. Come back and see my next review whenever you want. But you have to like this review or else I'm going to go juvenile!

This is getting all the food arranged.

This is cooking the corn and ring bologna.

This is Uncle Brian with his jalapeños coming out of the smoker.

This is me getting my food. 

This is me getting my food again and being a doofus. 

This is me eating. 

Me eating again. My mom took too many pictures, by the way.

This is my weird little baby sister. 

This is her running around in a NEW outfit. My mom always changes her outfit. I don't know why.

From the Archives: What the Heck Is That?

Originally published February 16, 2012

Today for lunch we went to the TNT Vietnamese Restaurant in Des Moines, Iowa. We were just out exploring to find a new restaurant to go to. I thought the name was interesting. I thought it would be super small inside, but it actually turned out pretty big.

It had a TV on and it had people on the news that did not like Barack Obama. My mom said they are republicans and they just try to fascinate people and freak you out. It was station Fox News.

We picked our table out. I set my hat on the chair beside me. We got our menu. It was bizarre because one of the meals had organs and heart and tongue and stomach in it! I did not pick that. There were two pages of drinks on the menu. I ordered Fresh Iced Lemonade. Keesia ordered Fresh Lime Tea. I didn't get my regular drink today because I wanted to get an adventurous drink instead of a rot-your-teeth drink.

Our drinks came. I tasted mine. It was the best lemonade I have ever tasted because it had a whole bunch of sugar in it! Keesia thought her drink was awesome too.

For appetizers, I picked Vietnamese egg rolls -- sauce, vegetables and meat were in the eggrolls. I've had them before so I remember the taste. It wasn't anything new. The sauce was good -- it was sweet, spicy and it had raw carrots in it. It was also sticky.

For lunch I ordered combination fried rice. And Keesia ordered something that had something else. Mine tasted like normal fried rice except it had a lot of seafood in it. It had scallops, squid, crab and shrimp. It also had pork, beef and chicken. It also had peas and carrots. It tasted like white rice except it was fried, which added more taste to it. It was a very colorful plate. The crab meat had pink stripes on it. I thought that was interesting.

Keesia's plate was also colorful. I advertised to try out the soup. When I tried it, I wasn't that big of a fan of it so I gave it back to Keesia. I didn't like it because I felt like it had vinegar and salt in it. And it wasn't a colorful dish. It was green and brown, not very colorful. I also tried Keesia's egg pie. I loved it! It had lots of egg in it. I liked it because it was different colors and the flavors were good. 

I was not able to eat all of mine because there was too much. We asked the waitress if we could have a box to put the rice in. And that's all.

Restaurant Rating: Thumbs Up

You should go to the TNT Vietnamese restaurant in Des Moines, Iowa. It has some very bizarre foods, like one dish has organs and heart and stomach and tongue in it! I thought the food was great, especially the drink.

Farmers Market Part Two

On Saturday I went to the Farmers Market.

I went to the Rolling Wok and I had a crab rangoon and a egg roll. They tasted like normal crab rangoons and egg rolls. I may go back to that place but I'm not sure.

And then we down to the end of the block and passed a Hulk balloon at the balloon stand. I didn't want to go there and get a balloon because the line was really big.

Then we went to the Kettle Corn stand and I wanted to get a mixed bag. But then I didn't want the one I got because I saw another kind, the "Chicago Mix." Chicago Mix is cheese popcorn and caramel popcorn. One is salty and cheesy and the other is really sweet. So that makes it good. My cousin Theron picked out the "Fourth of July" mix -- it was blueberry, cherry and vanilla popcorn. I tried some of it and it tasted pretty good.

So then we saw a stand that was a Russian place to eat and I got a pierogi. It had cheese, dill and hard-boiled egg inside and on the outside was bread. It was probably fried. It was my first time having Russian food. It was better than I expected. It tasted so bizarre that it made it taste good because the eggs were covered with cheese sauce and I am pretty sure it was fresh dill. And on the outside was really good bread. There were other kinds of pierogis. And there was some sweets, too. We'll probably go back to that sometime so I can get another pierogi.

Then we left.

One Day in May

May 5, 2012

Today I went to the Farmers Market. It's a big place where you go and pick out foods and other things. Well, when we first went there we were looking for a parking space. We looked everywhere, but it was all occupied almost everywhere. So we went to a parking garage, we had to go up to floor number four and then go down all the stairs. Then we finally got to the spot where we wanted to be.

First I saw egg rolls. I thought it was awesome so I went over with my grandma and I got two egg rolls (one for me) and two crab rangoons (one for me). I ate the crab rangoon because it wasn't hot, the egg roll had just been baked and was really hot and I didn't want to burn my tongue.

The crab rangoon has mushed up crabs inside. It didn't taste like crabs at all to me. It tasted like cream cheese and crab. It was crispy and crunchy on the outside. There was an unusual meat inside the egg rolls, it tasted like no other meat. I'm not sure what it was because I didn't get a closer look. They were great. The outside was crispy and crunchy, too. There was meat and vegetables inside and the crispiness and crunchiness and everything mixed together was good.

My younger brother said he didn't want anything to eat. Then I said, "Hey look! There's mini doughnuts!" And then he started acting all crazy like a monkey. He did that because he really loves doughnuts and we got them the last time we were there. Then we saw a refreshment stand and he got apple juice and I got orange juice. I love orange juice.

The doughnuts tasted crispy and sweet and more crispier and sweeter inside. They were really small doughnuts, about the size of the tip of your thumb.

I also saw this stand and it had wheat grass juice. I was like, "Oh gosh. I better get that. But I'm not sure it's going to taste good." So I tasted it.

 I wanted to spit it back into the cup because it tasted like grass itself except it was all mushed up. I have to admit it tasted pretty good too. Well, it was pretty sour so I like sour drinks so that's why I liked it. They gave me an orange to eat after it. Then it tasted a little sweeter. I think I'll get it again. Maybe. But maybe even a smaller sample. We also saw people drinking whole cups of it!

Then we went to an Indian stand. It was called Saloo's India. I got a samosa -- it's a crispy breading and meat and vegetables inside. It tasted really good. I really liked it because of those ingredients mixed together. The lady fries the food on a frying pan and turns them over. When they come out they taste great.

We went to a brick wall next. We sat on it and ate our things. Bo was adventurous enough to try a bite of my samosa.

Then we went to a tart place. We got some fruit on a stick -- they tasted good. I got pineapple and strawberry because that was the only choice I had. I didn't really like eating on a stick -- it poked my lips and hurts a little.

 Bo ate his like a corn on a cob.

Then Keesia went over to the breakfast pizza stand, Something Italian. There was like 20 people there so she had to wait a long time. So me and Bo jumped over puddles. Bo fell in them a little bit. I like going to the pizza place because it's our tradition to go there. Almost all the time we get to go to it and we really like to have their breakfast pizza. It's so good because it has bacon on it, and French bacon ("Is that right?") Oh no, CANADIAN bacon and cheese. And that's all.

Market Review: Thumbs Up!!!!!!!
You should go to the farmers market in Des Moines, Iowa, not far from the Capitol. It's open every Saturday from 7 a.m. to noon. You could shop for vegetables, fruits, but you shouldn't because they don't have fruits right now. You could go to the breakfast pizza stand, but you have to wait awhile! Next time I will try more adventurous foods at the farmers market.