Cactus in the sun.

When I want to go on a little adventure, I go to L&P, whatever it may stand for, our local Asian grocery store. Across the road is a French creperie surrounded by various places selling tacos, burritos and tostadas. L&P offers items that I didn't know existed. I usually come home with some vegetables that require a google before I know what to do with them. They have enormous frozen ducks and fish with eyes that prevent me from buying them. I don't think I can prepare something that has bigger eyes than I do. L&P don't even know what they sell, because at the check-out there was an interesting package with what looked like dried bulbs. I asked what it was. It was something to make rice-wine with but it was from Vietnam, and even Mr. L&P didn't know what to do with that. 
I usually encounter a winter visitor and invariably they say, 'interesting store' or 'I don't know what to buy here' but I do. I come home with cream crackers, which clearly haven't got a foothold in the U.S., and herbs and spices, that I can't find in the regular supermarket. I also bought some cookies, but when I got home decided that they were probably riddled with transfats, and so not really edible. However, there are peanut cookies (no transfat), sesame cookies, large bags of all kinds of rice, nasi kruiden (we Dutch eat a lot of nasi), pickled lemons, and bean sprouts. I made some atjar tjampoer today, a sweet and sour pickle of green cabbage, green beans, bean sprouts, carrot and more, to go with my nasi.