Spent some time visiting Little Granny a while back, and she whipped up a batch of the finest pflinzen you ever saw. She means business. I mean, seriously, check this out:

If you’re really cool, I’ve got a pflinzen recipe right here. Even put up some more pictures. Just for you, the faithful reader.

Beginning, naturally, with standing line with all the other Mennos presumably there to do the same thing.

And of course, followed up with the regular roundup of Mennonite staples. Farmer sausage, cottage cheese perogies, and plumi moos.

Round that off with watermelon and rollkuchen.

At this point, I needed a break. Dessert was still coming, and I needed some time to digest before I burst. So I checked out the music, and who was playing? Well, none other than the always-popular Secondhandpants. Unfortunately, they were missing Marlon Wyll Maynard due to a certain Intercontinental Championship. Francis here had it under control, however:

The Sound of Science!

So. Dessert: pie and platz. Can’t go wrong.

So ends another trip into the deepest recesses of my cultural group. As tasty though it may be, I’m kind of glad that it’s over: now I can go back to sin and debauchery for another year.

Sigh. I miss KL.

Edit: Man, I am sloshed in that video.

So one day I decided on a whim to order the ‘coconut juice’. Much to my surprise, however, it came still inside the coconut. They just hack a hole in the top and give you a straw. Also available widely from street vendors, as is evidenced:

One is also given a spoon in order to scrape out the coconut’s meaty deliciousness. This, however, can prove troublesome, since they always seem to make the hole in the top too small, so I end up scraping up my hands on the jagged edge of the shell. However, as is seen here, getting at that tasty coconut meat can be a trying experience, even when you have the advantage of tiny Asian hands:

This is a picture of a man who wants to die.

Durian is (in)famous for its smell. Its terrible, terrible smell. You always know when the grocery store has ‘em in stock, ’cause you can smell it out on the gods-damned street. The bizarre thing, I always thought, was not the durian itself, but how popular it is just as a flavour. Durian ice cream, durian candies, durian popsicles … and (as is shown here) durian pies.

I eventually got over my aversion and, in the form of this small pie, dipped my toes gingerly into the viscous pool of durian adventure.

So, to make up for the fact that I didn’t post last week (Hello, new OS install! Hello, new Internet connection!), I will supply you with a video that Tya sent me for the purpose of taunting me with inter-continental deliciousity.

As if that doesn’t make your mouth water.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than Indonesia’s J. Co. Donuts & Coffee.

It’s kind of like a Tim Horton’s, I guess, except with way more donuts and it’s, uh, Asian. They’ve got about every flavour of donut you might imagine there, and quite a few you might not (I’m looking at you, durian flavour).

The line ups to get into a J. Co are ridiculous. I mean, they’re good donuts, but let’s control ourselves a bit, please.

This is a very short line, and by no means the entirety of it.

I once asked an Indonesian guy to explain the secret of J. Co.’s success. I reproduce his answer here for dramatic effect:

Watch out, Dunkin’-fuckin’-Donuts. You’re goin’ down. (more…)

In the event that you are not crazy, you would likely think that an ice cream sandwich looks like this:

The “if you are not crazy” caveat is definitively important. Because some people are crazy, though I admit I cannot argue with the logic of deciding that an “ice cream sandwich” is ice cream between slices of bread. I guess.

Oh wait! Not done yet! There’s an extra surprise the Asians have for me, the unsuspecting foreigner.

Sneaky.

An important spring ritual: brushing the leftover snow off the BBQ and making burgers. It was my brother’s genius idea, as is illustrated here:

Flip the burgers! Flip them! Flip like you’ve never flipped before, goddammit!

Final product: frickin’ awesome (with dill pickle chips).