Not to get all Crazy Japanese Slasher on you, but I bought a new toy in Japan. I happen to find a knife place near Tsukiji Market and needed to get my mom a Kuri cutter (chestnut cutter). Don't ask. Anyhow, I really wanted to buy a knife from Japan since I used to always favor using my mom's knives from Japan over all the other crap she had in her drawer.
I do realize that I know absolutely nothing about cooking and my knife skills are pretty much relegated to the skills of someone in the 3rd grade. Furthermore, the sales guy knew ZERO english except "Stainless steel" or "Carbon Steel". I told him "Carbon Steel" despite the fact that it'd be more of a pain in the butt to keep it rust free (that was another english word he used in describing the stainless steel). He also said something about a blue steel core but I wasn't sure I understood that correctly.
Anyhow, he showed me a line up (after I eplained to him that it'd be for HOME, NON PROFESSIONAL use). I ended up picking each one of the four and testing the feel of each one. I decided which one I liked best and asked Erin for her input. She chose the "pretty one" which just so happened to be the one that felt the best. Needless to say, it was also the most expensive out of the four knives.
I haven't used it yet but let's all hope I don't slice my fingers off! It's super sharp...
$5 wonton soup as San Sun. This was chicken & leek wontons. It was QUITE delicious. I would go back here again!
Red Blossom Tea Company on Grant Street. I read Jeni's blog (oishiieats.blogspot.com) about this tea shop...and I will be the first to admit that I scoffed at the idea that tea is such a big deal. I just thought, "what a tea snob." Then I talked to Alice. That girl is a GREAT sales person. Just look at my President & sales rep enraptured in her presentation. I told her that I remembered this shop but remembered it being so cramped and crowded. She shared with our group that she and her brother, Peter, underwent a "hostile takeover" to redo the shop into their own vision. After her sales pitch, I bought a ton of teas. She kept bringing me more and more. She actually told my group that I had a more "refined" taste in tea. Someone piped up, "you mean she's a tea snob???" Alice just smiled. They all laughed because the day before my President called me a wine snob which I strongly objected to. Bastard. Calling me names.
In Switzerland, we thought, "hey...aren't the swiss known for their restorative facial treatments?? surely they must have good stuff." Then we discovered the fact that everything was about 15 times more expensive than any other country in the world. I said, "someone had mentioned that they picked up some 1 euro lotion and it was the best lotion they ever tried." thus became our quest to find this 1 euro lotion. We found it. this is one of the best lotions I have ever tried. and I'm sad to say that I only bought 2 tubes for myself...the rest for gifts. Anyone have any contacts (or go to switzerland) that can get us more of this magic cream??
We also wanted to pick up some drugstore variety of face cream. I decided on the eye cream because that's the area i need the most help. Louis Widmer is fantastic as well!! I love the consistency of this cream. Carrie is very happy with her face cream as well but I'm sure she may have a blog or two about that!!
No, we didn't actually go in the museum. We only had 3 days in Paris, and neither of us wanted to spend an entire day inside, fighting crowds to get a glimpse of the Mona Lisa.
We pulled off on the side of a road to take some photos of sunflower fields (sorry, erin...we found the fields in provence, not italy!). We would've crossed the road to get to the other side to take some close up photos but we feared that we'd become road kill from oncoming traffic. I could see the headlines "two dumb tourists flattened down by cross traffic in an effort to photograph some dumb flowers"
