Cilantro

This is Cilantro. It's awesome stuff. (If you don't think it is, it's probably 'cause of your genes. But I digress.)

This is Cilantro

Cilantro

This is flat leaf parsley:

Flat Leaf Parsley

Except for a year as an exchange student (I'll link to those stories once I write them) I lived in Texas from birth until 2003. In 2003 I ended up in North East Tennessee and suddenly couldn't find any of the groceries I was looking for. I was fairly adept at hunting down Indian groceries (another story I'll link to once I get it told) and all those skills came into play in Johnson City, TN when I needed to find the ingredients for the wonderful Tex Mex I was raised on.

I knew it was going to be an interesting place to live when I walked into the Ingles grocery store,

now that's "Een-gulls," not "Een-GLESS" and tried to find cilantro in the produce section. The stocker gave me the most confused look, said he'd never heard of it. I showed him the label on the bin in the produce section and he dutifully went into the back.... and came back with flat leaf parsley.

We eventually did find our places to get Indian groceries and cilantro and make-your-belly-happy menudo (the soup, not the boy band) but along the way we discovered some yummy foods and sometimes interesting foods like Bojangles bo-berry biscuits and Dr. Enuf. I'm wondering what foods will be a challenge to find after this move and what gastronomic adventures lie ahead.

Oh, and I'm looking for a good recipe for dalo aka taro. I figure any dish that's a food staple in African, Oceanic and South Indian cultures and is believed to have been one of the earliest cultivated plants has got to be delicious in some form. I just haven't found it yet.

taro

Update Saturday, August 9, 2014

Cilantro is $1FJ/bunch at the market here. At today's rate that's about 54 US cents. I think I'm going to like it here.