Vietnamese Market

We had been looking for quite some time for asian ingredients. After being told I was diabetic, we had to make some drastic changes to our diet to keep my blood sugar down.

My husband had been researching recipes we could easily make at home that would be filling but easy on the sugar/carbs. Some of the ingredients he needed: galengal, Thai basil, jicama, etc were either priced beyond our budget at regular grocery stores or just not available.

Since Hamilton has a fairly large asian population, we assumed that there must be markets that supply them with ingredients that are fresh, local or imported. After 2 years of living here, we finally found the place. What was crazy is that we were 2 blocks away from the Farmer's Market downtown but had never actually walked down the street where they are located. It just never dawned on us that a store would be located there.

Whatever you may be looking for, they pretty well carry it all. From fresh local meats, fish and shellfish to fresh local vegetables, herbs and fruits to imported condiments, spices, soup blends, curries, durian fruit. Name it, they most likely have it in stock. If you go, be prepared to spend quite a bit of time just browsing the many shelves that are found in narrow aisles where shopping carts compete for space with the stock boys keeping the shelves filled to capacity.

There are also some specialties prepared and cooked daily like barbecue pork, duck, chickens, quails that you can buy and take home. They have sweet asian breads from a local bakery as well as cakes & pastries. Personally I love their Durian cake, Moon cake and my husband adores the red bean cakes. You get 4 pastry/cakes for $1.99. Blame Anthony Bourdain for my love of Durian. Ever since I saw the episode he did in search of Durian I wanted to taste it. Nevermind the stench, I wanted to know what the fuss was about Durian. Several years ago I had spotted a tube of paste that claimed to be Durian, but once I tasted it, I knew this could not possibly be what sent Mr. Bourdain into an orgasmic dream sequence. My search continued on until I found the Durian pastry like cakes at Tan Thanh's. One of these days I will have to buy one of the fresh Durian fruits they bring in seasonally. But that will be another time. I'm afraid I wouldn't know where to eat it since my husband will refuse to be present at the opening of a stinkball of such potency that I worry it may set off a 4 cityblock evacuation. And driving out to the countryside with no car is out of the question. Ahh well, I shall dream on.

Don't expect to get fancy cuts of meat there. You point to the piece of meat you want, they weigh it and bag it. That's it. You want it cut up, you have a knife or cleaver at home you can do it yourself. But you can buy some of the best tasting pork, chicken and beef anywhere around. First time I had a chop from a pork loin, I almost cried with happiness, it tasted like what I had been raised on as a child living on a farm. We grew our own meat.

If you like chicken feet, this is the place that carries them. The whole chicken area is self serve. You put on a plastic bag as a glove and take what you need and bag it yourself. They replenish the shelves constantly since the price you pay for chicken breasts, deboned, skinned is lower than anywhere else in town. The chicken is local and may be free range since the flavor again reminds me of home as a child with our own free range chickens.

You can also get fresh blue crabs for $1.99 a lbs, fresh mussels, scallops, and other shellfish all displayed in tanks with water circulating. The fresh fish is swimming around in a huge tank below the counter that has already cleaned fish displayed on beds of crushed ice. The guys behind the counter are more than eager to get your choices packed for you.

I love the fruit they carry. They will have seasonal fruits like rambutan, lychees, longans, dragon fruit, asian pears, oranges, mandarins, mutsu apples, those tiny bananas, and much more.

They also carry many brands of rice like sticky, jasmine, and noodles fresh and dried. You like bubble tea. This is the place to come to for your bubble tea supplies. From the tea, flavor powders and multicolored tapioca balls, you can make your very own bubble tea at home.

If you want to go there, just click on the store name, it will bring you to a google map. Tan Thanh Supermarket

Have a great time exploring and experimenting with new ingredients. I know finding this market made a huge difference in our diet and I wouldn't go back to the heavy meat/potatoes north amercian diet for anything.

The Perfect Hairband!

Ok, so it's Saturday. What have I accomplished in the past couple of days that has kept me from updating my blog!?!

I'll have to start back around 20+ years ago with wanting the perfect hairband. I have long hair, very long hair. I sit on it long hair. It hangs in my face if I don't tie it up long hair. I love my long hair but let's face it, there are times when it can be a royal pain in the patootie like when you're at work, the phone rings, you pick it up and try to put it to your ear, but your hair got caught in your earring and you end up with a phone covered in hair, earring wrapped in said hair and you can't hear the caller and you can't get the phone out of the tangle of hair... get the picture?

So over the years I have tried a variety of hair bands and each one had it's failings.

• I tried the cloth hairband, it kept sliding back, not good.
• I tried the plastic hairband that sits tightly behind your ears, slowly gouging a red welt into the space and heaven forbid if you wear glasses. Cause then the plastic hairband competes for the space with your eyeglasses that are supposed to rest behind your ears! Glasses 1, hairband 1, me big headache.
• I tried the metal hairbands which turned out to be a total disaster since long hair tends to tangle into the metal tines and removing said hairband is tantamount to the Spanish Inquisition's torture chamber.
• I tried macrame hairbands, they would start off tight in the morning, and end up sliding either forward or backward. Such fun.
• I tried a beaded leather hairband. After losing a handful of hair to the beads and developing a rash from sweating under the leather, let's just say I won't go there anymore

All this to finally lead up to a pattern I found, while cruising the web for knitting ideas, that offered an answer to my long quest for the perfect hairband. It looks simple enough; I-cord with a small buildup of stitches leading into a nice basketweave pattern then back down again to an I-cord. The pattern called for the basketweave area to be 12" long, after measuring my head where I want the hairband to sit, I decided I would make mine a bit longer but still keep the I-cord ties at 12" each end.

I found a tiny bit of leftover yarn in a variegated color that I really like and set to knitting this hairband. For some obscure reason, I could not keep track of the repeats for the basketweave even after repeated attempts, it still kept coming out wonky. Sorry Carissa, not your fault, just my brain not grasping basketweave at 2 am LOL I finally gave up on following the basketweave pattern and just kept knitting/purling my way through until I had the desired length. I figured to myself since this was totally experimental and that it would likely fail, why kill myself over the basketweave not being a real basketweave.

I did the last I-cord stitch this morning, gave it a good stretch to make sure everything was solid and tied it on exactly the way I wanted it and hoped. Four hours went by, nothing had moved. So far so good. My husband and I head over to the local Vietnamese market to pick up some much needed groceries. Instead of my usual tying up of hair, I left the hairband on figuring this would be the litmus test since it was windy. So out we went dragging our bundle buggy behind me to the bus stop. Full wind blowing in my face and it's still not moving! I have a flicker of hope that this may be THE hairband after all. We get on the bus, rode downtown, commenting on the gorgeous fall colors and the blazing sun. Great day in October to be out and about.

Once downtown we walk 4 blocks to the Vietnamese market, hairband still hasn't budged. Cell phone rings, I without thinking twice about it quickly raise the phone to my ear to answer and nothing happens! No tangled hair in the earring or cell phone caught in hair caught in earring! Amazing!


We came home, unloaded the buggy and we made supper, hairband still in place. It's now just before midnight and this awesome hairband still hasn't budged from where I set it this morning! That's 12 hours, no tangled disaster, no hair in the face. I am so thankful that I plan on knitting one of these for each of my nieces, sister, sisters in law, daughter and several more for myself.

Now, I cannot take the credit for this wonderful discovery. I found this hairband at Carissa Knits blog If you look down the right hand column, you will see she has a list of free patterns and the Basketweave headband is the 3rd item down. She is a member of the Ravelry community as well, so go check out her blog.

Thank you Carissa for the wonderful hairband! You have ended my 20+ year search for the perfect hairband.