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.

Sinking City: Vietnamese Food in Ames

Today I went to my Dad's work and for lunch we ate at a Vietnamese place. The name was Le's Vietnamese Restaurant. It's in Ames, Iowa.

For an appetizer we ordered those see-through things with the noodles and fresh stuff. What are they called? Spring rolls. Not the fried ones. They were filled with pork and shrimp and something that looked like noodles and tasted like nothing, that was the clear part. And there was lettuce and cucumber. There was a peanut or peanut butter sauce. It was OK but I wasn't really a big fan because it was too sweet and it tasted a little bit like soy sauce to me. The roll tasted good. I like those because it's sort of like a salad that you can pick up.

I ordered something with noodles and soup on the side. Or at least, that's what I thought. So the thing was there were noodles and there was soup on top of the noodles. The noodles were in a soup. I didn't really like it. I mean the soup tasted sort of like chicken broth and it was sort of nutty tasting too. Some of the pork was too dry. Actually, none of the pork was too dry. I just wasn't a very big fan.

But my dad's food, jalapeño beef, I really liked it. The beef tasted good because it had a sauce with the rice. And the sauce went really good with the rice. The sauce was sort of like a steak sauce, well, not a steak sauce but it just went really good with rice and beef. And then I didn't want the jalapeños because sometimes I just don't want to have something that's really spicy. I asked for fried rice because I wanted something hot and dry to wash the soup taste out of my mouth. And then I ate the rest of Dad's stuff. It tasted really good. The rice and steak and sauce went well with the bell peppers. The rice is a plain taste but the bell pepper is like a crunch. Rice you don't even need to chew it because it's tiny grains. So I had a pretty decent lunch off of what I ate off my dad's plate.

And there's one more thing, this awesome hot and sour soup. It wasn't really sour, just a hint of sour to make it really good. It was kind of chunky too, and I liked that. And then it was hot. And that made a good feel in my throat. It was a little bit spicy and a little bit sour. And it tasted really good.

So that's my review for today. Chili today, hot tamale. Do you get it? Chili today? Sort of like hot tomorrow, but hot tamale.

Minneapolis 3 of 3: Grand Finale

I'm finishing my Minneapolis reviews. Next I will do normal reviews. Coming up next will be my first and a half year anniversary special edition review. It is a surprise!

Tuesday in Minneapolis
We woke up and then my mom went to her work thing. And then me and Bo watched cartoons for two or three hours. Then we went to the gym and played basketball. Soon my mom was on her lunch break. And then we went to the hotel's restaurant, Prairie Kitchen and Bar. We had to wait 40 minutes for our food to come.

There was not a lot on the menu but they had good choices. I picked spaghetti. The spaghetti had turkey for the meatballs and the noodles were whole wheat. I wanted fruit for a side. When it came out, there was a lid over the plate. And I was like, "What's it going to look like! What's it going to look like!" And then I saw it and then I ate it really fast. And it tasted yummy. I did not taste anything different about the taste, it was like normal spaghetti. We do not usually get fruit platters that are very good when we order off the kid menu sides. This one was a BIG side and it had a lot of fruits.

My brother, Bo, ordered a shish kebab with apples and cheese. He ate it, surprisingly. Well not all of it but most of it. the shish kebab idea was strange -- it was different. I thought it was a good idea because kids like cheese and they may not like fruits and vegetables, so that attracts kids to eat the shish kebab.

Park Time
See who that is swinging across the dangerous mountain rope? Who is it? Oh yeah, that's me! I can't believe I could hold on to that so long with one hand. I think I have a good upper body strength with one arm. Bo was pretty impressed. I'm not surprised.

 In this picture, I am in Loring Park in downtown Minneapolis. Do you think it's dangerous swinging across? But that's for daredevils. I am a daredevil so that's why I did it.

 In this picture I'm about to throw a football. Do you see this dandelion in the background? Well it is a fountain and I think it's kind of cool because it matches what I am standing in.

 This is a picture of me and Bo climbing up a tree. Kids may like this park and they may not because there are some playgrounds but it is more like a nature park. I liked it because it had these trees you could climb in. Do you guys know what LK&B means?

It means Loring Kitchen and Bar. It is about 50 feet from the park. We picked it because we really didn't want to walk very far so we just gave it a try.

 When we got inside it, like just when we stepped under the awning, it started pouring. So we're pretty lucky that we got in. You know what the orange stuff is on the plate? It's about five hot wings that I ate in about a minute! It actually wasn't very spicy to me. We also got a cheese flight -- it's a cheese platter. It has stinky cheese mostly. I liked them. Well some of them. Some of it I hated, but some of it I liked, especially the aged gouda cheese. It was crunchy and it tastes sort of like an artichoke and a brussel sprout.

 This picture is one of the pizzas we ordered -- it was a vegetable pizza. They had artichokes and other vegetables. I wanted an anchovy and sausage pizza. I like sausage pizza and I wanted to try what an anchovy is like. I know what an anchovy tastes like -- meaty and really salty. I wanted to try anchovies because of an episode of a show called Futurama where all the anchovies in the world were aten by a kind of crab creature and there was on bag left of them and this guy battled for it. So I wanted to try what anchovies taste like. I liked them but I like sardines better. I want to have more sardines soon because you can eat the bones of them. And the bones taste good for some reason.

 In this picture I am eating my pizza of anchovies and sausage.

And in this picture I'm eating ice cream. I requested a raspberry and vanilla ice cream. It tasted good. While I was eating, I looked out the window and saw police searching the fountain where we'd just been and they picked up some sort of material, it looked like. Maybe a gun or something. And I was wondering if it was a murder situation or something. Then I saw police talking to a person who was sitting on a bench and then they put him in a police car so I think that something was up for sure.

Well that's the end of my Minneapolis reviews. I hoped you liked it because I've been working on this for quite awhile. Next up, my one-and-a-half-year anniversary and this one is a very special one. You'll hear about it in other places, too. Maybe even the newspaper!

2 of 3: Minneapolis Mall

It was my second day in Minneapolis and I woke up and started wrestling with my brother. We watched Cartoon Network for awhile and went to pick my mom up after her conference. Then we got on a subway train, well, not a subway, but a train, to go to the Mall of America. It took about 31 minutes to get there and I liked the ride to it.

When we got to the Mall of America, we went inside and first we went to the Nickelodeon Universe. We found a ride we wanted to go on but then we went to the Lego store first. My brother got a Batman set and I got the Lone Ranger set. I liked it because I liked what the movie scenes look like and it seemed pretty cool. I got to make my own mini figure set so I made a banker because there was no banker in my set. And my mom said she really liked it. And my mom made a mini figure of my dad with the same head!

So after that we went to Nickelodeon Universe! We wanted to ride the Fairly Oddcoaster. It was very fun and pretty crazy at the same time. Bo was really scared on it. And he was like, "I want to get off! Mom! Mom!" He started sniffling and started crying. Well, he wasn't crying but he was screaming and I was like, "Wahhh! Aaahhhhh!" 

We went on the swing ride too. It was not very scary, just high up. I felt queasy after riding it because it was turning around my stomach.

Then we went to the Rainforest Cafe. We got to sit by a waterfall. There was a big guy standing there holding a globe in his hands. A big gold guy. And then I got a rainbow slushie drink in a cup that you get to keep. It was a special kind - it looked like a frog and it had a straw and a frog toy in the bottom.

Then I got two mini sliders, I mean cheeseburgers and French fries. They tasted good -- the food at the restaurant was American food. It was pretty good tasting and it filled me up, so that was the good thing! And for dessert I got an ice cream sandwich, and I ate that too. So it was a pretty busy day at the mall.

So then when we got off the train, we walked over and sat by a statue. I thought it was weird because it had naked people on it. I think they should have been wearing clothes. Do you? Or do you like that art?  

Next we went back to the hotel and I started building my Lego set. We watched some shows and then I went to bed. So that's the end of my day two, out of three in Minnesota. Come back next time to see my next review of day three out of three -- Loring Park.

Mini Review 1 of 3: Sushi in Minneapolis

Sunday I woke up in the morning and I went outside to ride my bike. In case you didn’t know, during my first bike practice on Friday I figured out how to ride a bike. So I was outside riding it and I remembered that I got to go to Minneapolis that day. So I rode my bike for a while and went inside. At 11:50, my brother’s football team was supposed to have pictures in 30 minutes and we had to go all the way to Ankeny so we just decided to skip football that day and go to Minneapolis early.

So my grandma got here and we left. We read books and talked and played for 4 hours. We sang the “Bottles of Beer” song and it was pretty fun on the way up.

When we got to Minneapolis, we checked into a hotel and got all of our stuff ready. And then we went to a restaurant, Ichiban, a Japanese restaurant and they have floating boats of sushi. I think that was pretty, well not pretty, but an AWESOME thing to have in a restaurant. Since sushi is my favorite food, I started taking platters of sushi as soon as I sat down. I got miso soup. The first sushi piece I ate was a bunch of rice with seaweed and then a strip of fish on the top. I got a lot of those kinds of sushi. It was a pretty fun restaurant.

There was a chef in the middle of the sushi bar. We sat in seats with the sushi boats floating around in front of us. I ate 20 pieces! It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it was. Each piece was on its own plate.

I liked the restaurant because it was cool. They had waterfalls inside and all the sushi you could eat and the sushi was floating around on boats so it was pretty much the most awesome restaurant ever.

For dessert, I got a little tin bowl of green tea ice cream. It didn’t really taste like green tea because it was really sweet. And then I went over to the wishing well and I wished 11 wishes and about 5 of those were for a new house. And after that, we left and went back to the hotel and went swimming. Then we checked out the gym, and then we watched Karate Kid.

This is one of three blog posts because I had three days in Minneapolis and I went to three restaurants for supper. I will be having more reviews soon. And hopefully I will get a bunch of views, like way more than my mom on her blog.

And I am surprised that my word “humongo-badungo” is now used a lot at Integer. There, I made your work famous, Mom.