In between the multiple emails I get about the stupid-assed Cookie Diet and the weird-assed Pimple Blocker Battle events, I occasionally get emails asking me whatever happened to my Lick the Produce entries where I’d try new fruits and vegetables. Well, the produce section done been licked, y’all. The Kroger is bathed in my saliva. But, since you seem to like my tongue-based adventures I decided to drive across town for new material and visit Saraga, the international grocery.

Saraga is cold and quiet. The cashiers wear mittens and coats in the winter. An unsettling quiet blankets the store because no music is piped over the speaker system. I don’t know if they can’t afford a PA system, or if they don’t want to play music from any one nationality for fear of alienating another culture. I suspect it’s because they’re cheap.

It’s more fun to look at the items at Saraga than to actually eat them, especially after reading these reviews about how dirty and unclean the store is and how they allegedly rip people off and switch labels on items. I do wonder how long the items had been sitting on the shelf. How much pocky can they really sell in a week? And how frequently do chayote shipments come in?

Saraga isn’t close to my apartment, and it’s located in a somewhat sketchy part of town, so I don’t visit there often. I usually want to leave about 10 minutes after I do because of the cold and the quiet and the creepy food, like the Bulgogi above which looks like it crawled out of the primordial ooze and is about to gain self-awareness. Reading the description of bulgogi on Wikipedia makes it sound tasty, but my eyes can’t get over how gross it looks.

I searched for the corn and cheese flavored ice cream I saw there last year, but couldn’t find it. Which means someone actually bought it. I can only hope that like me, they were a blogger searching for material. I bought two weird fruits to review…and then I let them sit in my fridge for over a week. Spiky fruits are scary, ok?! So, you’ll have to wait a bit longer for any new “Lick the Produce” entries.

Out of curiosity, I also purchased two of the bean cakes pictured above, expecting a pastry made with red beans to be one of those items I chewed three times and then spit into the trash as a masticated ball of goo. Imagine my surprise when it was tasty! Really tasty! Proving once again that if you inject something with enough sugar, I will probably eat it.

Visiting Saraga made me wonder what American foods seem odd and gross to foreigners. Whatever they are, they can’t possibly sound as bizarre as fish paste.

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I’ve never thrown a party before in my life. Even my childhood birthday parties were hosted by my mom, who bought the cake and ice cream and whisked my hair out of the candle flames before my head was set on fire. Since she’d proven herself so well in the past, I put her in charge of organizing this brouhaha. Thanks, Mom! There are a lot of questions that go into planning a party, like, where do we hold it? Do we serve food? How many people are going to come? Why am I so stressed out planning an event that is supposed to be fun? Little did I need to worry though, because I had a fantastic time, which is why combined with finishing a half-marathon earlier that day, I considered it to be one of the best days of my life.

My cousins Allison and Adrienne and my Aunt Elaine helped me and my mom set up the room. As people started to trickle in, I greeted them and started signing books. One of the cool things about having a book published is that you get to write in other people’s books and it’s not considered vandalism.

To keep the guests entertained as people kept arriving, we introduced the “Lick the Produce” quiz. I printed out images of all the fruits and vegetables I’ve tried in the Lick the Produce series over the past year and made people fill out surveys guessing what they were. Nicole helped us out by doing a lovely Vanna White impression.

It wasn’t done just for fun though, it was done for free pasta! Since I’m the PastaQueen, I decided I needed to bestow my bounty upon the winner. Ari over at FiberGourmet donated a lovely gift basket that we gave away to Nancy, who got the most correct answers with 11 out of 28. (It was a hard quiz!) Here’s a picture of me and my mom (the PastaQueen Mother?) with the basket.

As you’ll notice, I am holding a Spaghetti Scepter, lovingly handcrafted by my Aunt Donna from a pasta server, ribbon, sparkly jewels, and lots of hot glue. She surprised me by spending the night making them as party favors. Thanks, Donna!

Next up I read the “Trail Mix” chapter in my book in honor of Indianapolis since it takes place on our local nature trail. I tried not to talk to fast and to project my voice. I hadn’t read the chapter for a couple months, so as I was reading I was also scanning slightly ahead so I wouldn’t trip over the words. My heart stopped a little when I saw that the word “bastard” was coming up and glanced at my mom’s church friends in the corner of the room. Oh, well! If they were okay with a book titled Half-Assed hopefully they weren’t offended by my potty mouth.

After that I did a Q&A. At the end my mom just happened to ask what I would be doing this weekend and I made my big Today Show announcement. After that we ate and I got to talk to my friends and meet several of my readers. It’s so awesome to meet people in person and finally put faces to IP addresses. It’s odd, but I would probably recognize a lot of you more by your email addresses than your actual names. I was a little worried that I might be crashing somebody’s diet by serving spaghetti and meatballs and fettucini alfredo and lasagna, but Lord knows I needed the carbs after all the running around I’d done that day.

Amy and Nicole took a picture with my cover signs, pretending they were standing in my fat pants too. I stole a couple of their pics for this post and Allison sent me the rest. Thanks for the photos, guys!

And then people started to trickle out and the party was over. My Aunt Elaine and cousin Allison posed me for several pictures, making it truly like the wedding reception I never had. Instead of stuffing cake into some guys face, I held up my Spaghetti Scepter next to my book sign. For several hours I was transported to a parallel dream world where I had no problems, everyone was happy for me, and there was lots of pasta. The happiness just glowed outwards and I had a great time, even though my feet were battered from running and started to hurt in my heels.

Then I went home and slept for nine bazillion years.

Thank you to everyone who attended! I hope you had a good time too. Special thanks to my mom, Donna, Elaine, Adrienne and Allison for all their work and planning. Thanks to my publisher for the signs and their other support. And kudos to our server Barb who cracked me up and truly earned her tips by walking up and down the stairs from the kitchen to our dining room.

Maybe we can do this again some time.