My g/fs and I usually have our Fridays lunch date at noon – today we decided to go to Marco’s because we wanted the peanut butter cheese cake that they are famous for.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have it that day – we were kinda disappointed.  But the scallops were great – and fresh – we loved it.   I had baked potatoes with mine.

While my g/f had hers with a salad.

Another friend had the pork schnitzel but we had ordered another piece to share.  Unfortunately, this friend of us – only offered the piece to us – when he couldn’t finish – hahahhaah!!! so weird right?  I guess just different culture or is it a man thingie?

Blueberry cream cheese cake – yummy!   We did have a awesome lunch and thanks to my g/f  – H for the lunch.  And interesting conversation followed with lunch about the different dating culture we have  – from the West and East.  It was interesting indeed, while we learned that dating for most men here in this town means hanging out at the guy’s place, for us Asians dating means going out and eating and going for movies, walk in the park and beaches – meeting up with friends.  Yes, a very interesting conversation.

Sunday lunches are precious to me because I get to go out and eat with the spouse and even though he doesn’t like food as much as I, I still think that it’s a good idea to sit together and have a meal.  Chloe loves eating out although she only eats either fish and chips or nuggets and chips – limited selection for her because she is still so fussy.

But she is happy to eat with daddy once a week because she is after all a daddy’s girl.

PB had his favorite fish chowder – and even then I don’t think it’s much.

Jin Jin had a veggie pasta.

We shared a bruschetta together.

I had a lasagne – but I had wanted a seafood one but don’t like the creamy texture, so I settled for a regular lasagne.

We shared a peanut butter cheesecake together.  Of course I had coffee and Jin Jin had earl grey tea and PB had water – Chloe had apple juice.

This was the other birthday cake that we’ve ordered for Chloe’s birthday celebration in school.  This one is from Sobey’s – a lot cheaper and they provided us with candles for free.  The cake was just as good, not as much frosting but who needs more frosting than this right.  So the next time, i will order from Sobeys instead.  But Chloe is a lucky girl, 2 birthday cakes for her birthday and 1 more home made by Aunt Helena.

Chloe had her birthday party at the bowling alley last week and of course like every birthday, we went out to order her a birthday cake and since we really liked Superstore’s decoration better for cakes – we went there.  The cake was definitely great – and the icing on the cake was even better – lots of icing – and the price as compared to Sobeys was like $5 more and no candles to offer you.

We also bought another cake from Sobeys and even though it doesn’t have as much icing as Superstore, it was just as good.  Personally, I don’t like too much icing but for the kids – of course, the more icing the better.  The other cake was for Chloe’s school – that way no one misses out on her birthday party.  The next time, we will order from Sobeys instead.

The chocolate Chimi-cheesecake from Jungle Jims was so sweetttt…!!!  ohhhhh!! i couldn’t finish eating it – I only had 1 piece and my g/f had the rest packed home for dessert – to be eaten slowly.  Maybe I should have ordered the berry ones – don’t get me wrong – it was yummy – but oh my ! so sweet!  Apparently, the Chimi-cheesecake is a Mexican Twist desert and the cheesecake and chocolate are rolled inside a tortilla skin and fried till crispy.  Unfortunately, ours wasn’t that crispy – it was more bread-like.  At $5.99 – not a bad deal at all.

Bailey’s Bakery located at Highway 1 – near Hebron – in Yarmouth is a little way out of town but it’s definitely worth checking out I told myself.  Rumors has it that they had gotten the Old Minard’s recipes for cake making and they are making pretty much the same stuff Minard was making before they retired.  Please check it out and support your local business.

sugared donuts.

Cream Puffs ! yummy! not too sweet – just the way i like it – but huge though.

chocolate cubes – not bad but could be a bit more moist.

Jam Fancy

Lemon Cubes

Mocha cubes

Pineapple cubes

Butterflies

Fancy Christmas cupcakes.

And some plain donuts at 0.50 cents each.  They have a lunch menu too but I haven’t tried it – so give Bailey’s Bakery your support and go try it out.

The New Century Restaurant has a new dessert menu for the buffet – did you know that?  yup !  cream puffs, coconut pies, cheese cakes and ice cream – don’t forget the fruit cocktail too!  Very nice addition to the buffet table – and I see that the buffet was really crowded today too – food must be good eh.

Nova Scotians are known for their love of cheese and PB loved his cheese, in fact he loved any kind of cheese and uses cheese for just about anything he eats.  From sandwiches to even chinese rice – yes, you heard right !  crazy but that’s how he would eat certain things – even my chinese noodles.    So this Christmas, I got him a perfect gift – guess what ?  a cheese making supplies  – yup! you heard right!  and I think he would really like it.  Now he can make all the cheese he wants and loved for a fraction of the price he pays for them.   Everything can be missing in our home but not cheese or cheese whiz – now, PB can have all the cheese he wants – with these cheese making supplies.  I am buying something he loved – I bet he would be really surprised this year – he said I can’t get anything he would like – lets just see what he says to this cheese making kit!

I really try not to eat the same thing over and over again – but I tend to stick to something I liked but one gotta be a wee bit more adventurous if you are writing about food right?  Plus, my big boss told me the other day – please go eat something new.  So when Boston Pizza came up with a new menu – a few weeks ago, I had to go try it.  But of course, my gal pal had to have chicken wings this week – hahahah!!!  now how unadventurous was that!

Next she had that 3 cheese toast loaded with bubbling cheddar, pizza mozzarella and Parmesan and a wee bit of garlic and she swears by it.  I did try it sometime ago, and found it really rich.  A single order of this bread is about $5.25 – so not a bad price at all.

I had the sirloin steak with steam veggies and a salad with raspberry vinaigrette, alas – the steak was tough, i think i might need to order medium rare instead of medium well from now on.

My other gal pal had her usual Jambalaya fettucini – half order of it.  If you didn’t know by now, one can order a half order of pasta from Boston pizza – now isn’t that good? actually it’s great for people like us who can’t eat so much in one meal.

Then we had dessert – this was S’mores Pizza and it was definitely yummy!  we could have that again.  The marshmallow was burnt just the right amount.

This was a brownie with chocolate and ice cream but the brownie was rather dry – kinda disappointing but nevertheless a great meal.  Plus we got a great waitress, Tanya and we got a 15% discount because of the steak and the brownie.   But we left a $10 tips too.

Since we can’t go to the apple farm this week because of the rain, we decided to get some oranges and banana for Chloe’s class.  We have been doing this weekly sine school opened because we believed that fruits is the best treats for the children.  Her teachers don’t mind us sending fruits but as for candies, they don’t encouraged it and I’m grateful for that.  I know the children loved that we send fruits every week for them and they seems to enjoy the treat and I’m happy that we are able to do that.

We don’t really celebrate mid-autumn festival in Nova Scotia because there isn’t much people in my town that is Chinese and knows the meaning of Mid-Autumn festival and playing with lanterns and eating mooncakes.  But that did not prevent me from getting some mooncake from a famous Hong Kong brand – with the help of a dear friend in Toronto.  Jen from Passion4food.ca – dear Jen was so busy with her own baby – because he was sick and yet had to get the mooncake for me and mail them out to me.  How nice is she!  so folks – want good food from Toronto – visit Jen’s blog – www.passion4food.ca.

Anyhow, the mid-autumn festival is mostly celebrated with family and a huge meal with the children playing with lighted paper lanterns and the adults would sit around and chat and enjoy the mooncake after dinner and enjoy the round moon.  The mid-autumn festival is celebrated to celebrate the harvest of the lunar year.

But it had long since been tied to the dragon boats and a chinese mythology  -  Houyi and Chang’e.  Anyhow, back to the mooncake, they are made with lotus paste and duck egg yolk.  I never used to like mooncake when I lived in Asia but now that I can’t find it anymore, of course I had to have them.   Humans are really strange aren’t they?  so do cherish the things you have now and not regret not having them later.

When Grammie passed away, Chloe’s classmate sighed and told her – “no more apples and plums from now on?”  it was really cute – kids eh!  so we made sure that this year even without Grammie, we brought Chloe to the apple farm at Wallace Brothers in Port Maitland and bought 2 huge bags of apples and 2 boxes of plums for Chloe and her classmates.   The school and teachers welcome all kind of healthy stuff for the kids and I loved getting it for them.

Andy the owner of Wallace Apple Farm told me that they missed Grammie everyday and every minute – my heart just felt like crying and of course Chloe went home crying for her grammie that night.  Oh my!  so sad !  For those who are not aware of this – Chloe’s Grammie – Olivette passed away in February this year – suddenly – due to liver cancer.  By the time she diagnosed nothing can be done, she left within 2.5 weeks.

The apple farm is one of Chloe’s connection and memories of the times she went there with her Grammie – Grammie was really a hard worker, she would never miss a day at the Apple Farm and was always ready to go help when the Apple Farm needed her.  Many a times before Grammie passed away, I would tell her to spend more time with Chloe first thru’ PB but she didn’t.  I’m guessing it’s because she never knew she was going to be gone so soon.  For those out there, make sure you spend time with your loved ones and don’t let a moment slip by regretting not spending enough time with them.

Thank God for  truck seat covers  else these food that we had carried to the church would have gone all over the car and would be really hard to clean – hahah!  we were invited to a church gathering and because of the rain, we had to pick up the food from various people who couldn’t make it.  Since we have a truck, we decided to do a good deed for the day but little did I know that some of the food didn’t come with covers, so some food did spill of course, but thank god for seat covers, else it would have been really messy!  We delivered the food on time and I managed to get the seat covers cleaned out in a jiffy and PB didn’t look too mad after the cleaning.

Marco’s Grill does have one of the best desserts in town and even if you are not going for lunch or dinner, you can always stop in for some desserts like we did.  My girlfriend had the crepe with ice cream because she already had lunch, so we told her to come along for dessert and like how it looks – it was yummy to the max.

PB and I had a brownie fudge, I wanted to have something sweet with my coffee and it was really good.  While chloe had a chocolate sundae.

Both chloe and my best gal pal aka my sister from another mother enjoyed themselves so much.  We really loved Marco’s – now only if it wasn’t so hot all the time.

We were at PB’s cousin wedding in Moncton a month ago and we had a blast.  They had some finger food late in the evening after the wedding ceremony and speeches and we do liked the food – they were really tasty.  We didn’t eat much because it was already late and we had to bring Chloe back to the hotel to sleep -but it was overall a good snack – and can make a meal if you are very hungry.  Chloe had some plain Ritz crackers because she wouldn’t eat anything else.  Now some hot dog right about now would be very nice. hehe!  But who’ve heard of hotdogs during a wedding right?  but wait a minute one of PB’s friend had Macdonald’s for his wedding – now that was too funny – but he used to work at Macdonald’s so it’s not that strange at that time.

The Children’s parade was last week and they had a tea party with the Mayor for the opening ceremony for seafest 2012.  It was a very hot day and the traffic wasn’t controlled properly and I felt so bad for the kids who had to wait in the hot sun for the traffic to clear before they can start the parade.  Chloe was in the parade as well and i had taken the walk with her from the Tourist promotion board to Frost park and a good thing I had on my  genutrain  because my knees would have given out if I didn’t.  After the parade, there were some cakes and pizza for the kids but Chloe didn’t have any because there were just not enough to go around – and they headed back to the camp.  What a bummer! the kids went back so hungry – Chloe complained.  I think i have to inform the organizers for next year – those kids definitely needed a cold drink and something to eat – it wasn’t right at all that every year – the kids don’t really get anything to eat and drink on such hot days.  I’m definitely not impressed with some people.

If you are ever in Yarmouth on Saturday, you have to drop in at the Farmer’s Market here – at Mama Jo’s bakery – you will find all sorts of home made goodies that even I – a diabetic cannot resist.  Mama Jo’s bakery actually helped us out because of their chocolate chip peanut butter cookie – for it was the cookie that Chloe and Grammie made together every Saturday.  Now that Grammie is gone – and no one to bake that cookie with her – Mama Jo’s bakery came to our rescue just when Chloe was missing her Grammie so much.  Now every Saturday, we head out to the Farmer’s Market if not for anything else – but the chocolate chip peanut butter cookies.

But of course, they have more than just chocolate chip peanut butter cookies that we liked.  They have all kinds of bread – that we called cake at home – I’ve tried the banana bread – and liked them – not too sweet – just the way I liked them but some more bananas would be awesome.

All kinds of home made cookies.

Marshmallow chocolate cubes that PB loved and buys them every week.

Biscuits and jellied cookies.

Cinnamon rolls and dates squares and a coconut dessert – all too yummy!  so you know where to get your desserts if you are in town.  Mama Jo’s bakery is always opened late – and the owner is always sweet and friendly – go chat him up the next time you are there.

Friends from Montreal came to visit last weekend and brought us gift of bertucci watches  for both PB and myself – they are just too sweet and in return we brought them out for dessert at Jungle Jims.  We had wanted to try out desserts at the new cafe but they weren’t open that day – and Jungle Jims never fail us when it comes to desserts and service.

Our friends from Montreal came to see if they can invest here in town and buy a house here to retire and we were happy to show them around and introduce them to a few businesses that they might be interested in.  This visit is way too short – but we will lined up some places for them to see in the summer when they come back for a second visit.  They do like the town and they do see potential in our small town.  I can’t wait to have a bigger Asian community in Yarmouth – that way we may even  have an Asian grocery store here – haha!   But yes, they were so sweet and even though the trip was short – they brought us such an expensive gift.  PB was shocked to say the least because the watches were the vintage watch he was looking for and we had only mentioned it briefly years ago to our friends from Montreal.  They definitely are nice people.

I love anything banana – to tell you the truth – but the banana bread I’m used to – usually have a good strong taste of banana – and the best ones were those that had banana slices on top of it.  Now those were super yummy.  I bought this from the Farmer’s market – and they were really sweet – not really a lot of banana taste – but nevertheless good.  I may even try and make some myself with banana slices on top soon.

Planning a play date for Chloe and her friends was a fun one for me – not only because I get to buy all sorts of food to introduce to them – I also get to plan all kinds of games for them to play with.  Of course, I had help from my good old friend Mabel and her brain teaser puzzles  and we were all set to entertain a few of Chloe’s friends from school and church.

We bought some cheese calzone from the Old World Bakery down on Main Street and the kids loved them – and wanted more.  Full of real cheese in them and some tomato paste making the calzone so yummilicious .  This makes a meal by itself but since we had other food for the kids to eat – we cut them into bite sizes.

We also bought some Baklava for everyone – and this turkish dessert was a delight to all the kids – it was really and had peanuts in them – lucky for me I checked to make sure that no one was allergic to peanuts.

We had cookies from the Farmer’s market.

Actually a variety of cookies but of course, we let them play on their own as well with dolls and watch a movie.  The play date went super well – and all the kids went home happy and fed with junk.