Maui Day 1 - McD's for lunch, plus quick stops at Walmart & Safeway for local stuff

Sadly, because the Geste Shrimp Truck was closed on Monday...

we ended up going here...

My birthday morning - Cream Pan in Tustin + Hopper & Burr coffee in DTSA + Mexican fruit cup from vendor

Bert's bro was kind enough to let us stay in his pad overnight. TC and her cousin were able to catch up while we were crashed out...

My birthday morning was started at one of my favorite bakeries...

Return to Bobalu Berries

We had been here before...

a few years ago and since we were again in the same area,

thought a revisit to Bobalu Berries would be nice...

Strawberries

Last year we planted six strawberry plants.

After a few months, each plant started growing "runners"...

McGrath Family Farms

A few miles away in neighboring Camarillo was our next stop...

where we made a short stop before our southward trek...

Summer Road Trip 2014 - Day 6: BobaluBerries

Nearly two years later, this post is finally seeing the light of day...

Heading down from Ventura, we made our way south to Oxnard.

There were a ton of strawberry stands and we decided on this one...

Dragonfruit from my parents

My parents started growing dragon fruit plants last summer but hardly any fruit was produced...

This year, their plants grew and multiplied like crazy and lo and behold...

Fruitiza

The other night I stopped by this Mexican fruit/juice joint...

It's in the Kohl's shopping center and right next to Krispy Kreme. I don't like Kohl's at all so I hardly ever go to this area, but since I had a magic piece of paper...

Giving Thanks...

Happy Thanksgiving...

Lunch once again was at my parents' house with everyone over...

El Mango Manila

As we traveled down Picador, we hung a right on Del Sol, then another left on Beyer. This was another place I hadn't driven to in decades. The bakery was supposed to be in this strip mall off of Dairy Mart Road...literally across the trolley tracks.

As we drove around the parking lot, we couldn't locate Panaderia Gonzalez, except for an empty storefront where it should have been. Well, that didn't deter us from making the most of our trip. Asides from the Neighbors Supermarket that anchors this lot, we thought we would stop by this juice place...

Return to the Holy Land Market

A few weekends ago TC and I went out in search of a few places. Bakeries specifically.

Our first stop was here, at a strip mall near Montgomery High School in Otay Mesa. This is the strip mall anchored by CVS (formerly Alpha Beta back in the 70's) and Bank of America. It's changed over the decades and I literally have not driven in this parking lot in at least 20 years!

Unfortunately, the bakery was closed on Sunday....

I was curious about this place because there are three similarly named bakeries in the South Bay.

Stray lunches, random pix and more

It's another one of those "random" pix posts...

This is the view of the 805 from the H Street Bridge. The freeway median is being converted to HOV lanes...

and will supposedly be finished by 2014. Hmmm, we'll see about that. I really hate how the lanes are super narrow now because of this.

It's been a super hot and humid week too....

Apple Slaw

The other recipe that I saw at the doctor's office involved Bert's favorite fruit, the Granny Smith apple...

The long list of ingredients was a bit daunting and the prep work a bit tedious, but I had most of the ingredients and thought I'd give it a go...

Goodbye Valerio's and the Strawberry Fields

Earlier today, I thought I'd check a few favorite places I like to go for Filipino baked goods and fruit.

This is where my parents used to buy fresh pan de sal every weekend...

Fruity ice pops

Just the other day, I was reading Kirbie's blog and saw that she posted on homemade fruit bars.

I really liked the look of her fruity bars and decided to dig up our old popsicle maker. This is one of two that I bought years ago at Target...

Raspberry and Blackberry Mochi Cake

Another dessert I made for my bday dinner party has its roots in this movie...

Believe it or not, there IS a connection...

Rosca de Reyes

Although "King's Day"  (or "Dia de Reyes" and was on January 6th) has come and gone,

our deparment were the lucky recipients of a traditional Mexican treat. One of the parents of a student was generous enough to gift us with a very large cake made fresh from Tijuana...

Random food + gifts

These past few weeks, we received a few food gifts such as pomegranates from TORC's backyard...

This was only half of them. TC had fun breaking these apart and picking out the seeds...

Another interesting fruit I received was one from Cathy's yard...

Mango

[Update 2015 - This place is now closed.]

Whenever I hear the word "mango", I don't think about that luscious tropical fruit.

Instead, this is what comes to mind (most of the time!)...

Chris Kattan as the infamous "Mango" from SNL:

For those of you that remember watching the whole episode, Garth Brooks was full of win that night, with "Who's More Grizzled" and "Celebrity Jeopardy". This one was pretty funny (but disturbing).

Well, this post is about another kind of mango as well. Something that we thought we'd try but ended up regretting...

Return to Otay Farms Market

After our lunch at Boll Weevil, we headed just a short distance up the 5 to the Main St. exit. Hang a right on Broadway and you will see this...

I wanted to see if they had still had a particular potato chip flavor...