Gluten Free Pasta Salad...

Tonight we're going to another evening of potluck with Kelli's friends. It seems as though if they were counting, the would be on the 300th Mid Pac reunion by now since they have graduated... and that was only 10 years ago! :P Just kidding you guys... but you guys see each other more often the I see my family. Anyway, I went to a new Doctor because I'm frustrated with my syptoms and ridiculous "low residue" diet. I'm seeing an M.D. that specializes in alternative & nutritional medicine to try to relieve me of these annoying symptoms. He told me the "low residue" diet is ridiculous. I agree. When I read the list of things I could and could not eat, some things made absolutely no sense. Anyway, I'll go into more on that in a future post on the current diet he asked me to try. My current diet restriction is a "No Gluten/Wheat & Dairy Diet". This is also driving me crazy! But this post isn't about that. It's about the first "official" gluten free dish I've cooked. Gluten Free Pasta Salad! The gluten free pasta I chose is a rice flour based pasta. Seems so simple and I have no idea why they have to charge so much for it! This will be covered in a future post. Anyway it's a box of this Glutino Brand Fusili. It costs too much for what it is (rice). I boiled it in some salted water and mixed in some sliced/chopped salami, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, a bottled Italian dressing, EVOO, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, fresh basil and garlic to taste. It's not as tasty as usual. I don't think it's the pasta. I think it's the bottled Italian Dressing. After reading the bottle later, I realized it was made with a canola oil rather than olive oil. I think that's what made it lack the flavors. Well Happy Birthday Erin! I hope everyone enjoys some Gluten Free Pasta Salad tonight!

Picnic at Ala Moana Beach Park

Kelli's friends had a picnic at Ala Moana Beach Park this past weekend. It was a potluck event. I cooked up some yakisoba to bring like a Hiroshima Style Okonomiyaki dish. This is the yakisoba. I put the yakisoba (stir fried thin slices of pork and cabbage with noodles) into a pan and draped the top with thin, crepe style egg sheets. On top of the egg is some okonomiyaki sauce, mayonnaise, nori (Japanese dried seaweed) & some pink pickled ginger. If this were at a restaurant, it would usually be prepared and served on a grill right in front of you. Similar to teppanyaki restaurants. It's a little different eating it after it was prepared in advance, cutting it up and scooping it out of a pan, but it tasted like a good yakisoba anyway. Here are a couple of shots of the tree that we were under. It was very relaxing laying down and looking up through the leaves to the blue skies above. These big trucks were cruising through the park in the afternoon. They looked pretty nice. I don't know if these people knew what they were walking on, but I thought it was an intersting sight. They are kind of small (in contrast to the huge sewer pipe) so it's difficult to see them. There were 2 people that I watched as I was sitting at the traffic light waiting to turn into the park. They climbed up just to walk on the giant sewer pipe. I thought it was a yucky thing to do, but perhaps they did not know what was flowing through that huge pipe.

L&L 76 cent Plate Lunch Goodwill Fundraiser

On Tuesday, L & L Drive In's Keeaumoku Street location in Walmart had their Goodwill fundraiser event. Between 11am-2pm customers could purchase 3 different plate lunches for 76 cents and a soft drink for 10 cents! It's a very popular day to see people lining up at L & L. People began lining up from early morning for a chance to get some of the special items offered to the first few. The first 10 would get a month's supply of Pepsi while the first 100 would get an "I Love L & L" T-Shirt. This is what the line looked like at around Noon. The line also wrapped around near the driveway and made a U-turn back down on the sidewalk! The choices of plate lunches that were offered were the Chiken Katsu, Kalua Pork with Cabbage & Hamburger Steak. I had the hamburger steak plate. It tasted great and had 3 hamburger patties! It was too much so I saved 1 patty for dinner. I received a 2nd plate of Kalua Pork and added the 1 extra hamburger patty and some of the Chicken Katsu to it. I saved this plate for dinner. Luckily, I did not wait in the line for these plates. My real estate partner, Josephine, is Eddie Flores' (Founder of L & L) sister. She wanted to visit and offer her support so she brought me with her. The plate lunch and drink offerings alone are a wonderful promotion, but in addition to that being offered to the customers, the earnings during the promotion are donated to Goodwill Charities. Thanks L & L, Eddie and Josephine for the lunch AND dinner.

UP! 3D Movie

Kelli and I went to see Disney's UP! in 3D on the opening weekend. It was a great movie. It seems almost everyone I talked to about this movie did not realize it was a movie made for 3D and did not bother going to see it in 3D! Of course it costs a little more to see it in 3D, but you know it has to be worth it if Disney created it for the 3D experience. Anyway, we really enjoyed the movie. If you aren't familiar with it, here are some Google results.

1999 Honda Accord EX 4 Door For Sale

1999 Honda Accord EX 4 Door For Sale
We are selling the trusy Honda Accord. Anyone need a decent car???

Tokyo Banana

My Aunty returned last week from a 2 week visit back to Tokyo. She and my Uncle and their family finally migrated here. They were waiting for their visas for over 20 years! It's pretty much been a lifelong goal for their 4 children (my cousins). She brought me this "Tokyo Banana" as omiyage (gift or souvenir). They gave me this before when they visited Honolulu. It's a tasty packaged cake with a banana cream filling. It is something like a Banana Flavored Twinkie, but much higher in quality. Unlike the Banana Flavored Twinkie, the Tokyo Banana's cake doesn't have a strong banana taste. The cake is a simple yellow cake much like the normal Twinkie. The Tokyo Banana's banana filling is where the banana taste is present. It's a consistency of like a banana puree and tastes like it is real banana. I don't know if it is 100% banana puree of some sort, but it definitely isn't like a banana flavored cream in a Twinkie. If you like bananas and cakes or Twinkie type snacks, try this out some time! Yummm :P