After a tense Thursday-Friday which I’ll go into in another post, Friday night felt like a breath of fresh air to my mind. The pressure was gone like all the weight on my shoulders melted away. To celebrate, my husband and I decided it was time to return to our favorite restaurant, Golden Dragon, which in our little town, no joke, has awarding winning Chinese cuisine. His food is legit.

Since we have been watching Strictly Dumpling at lunch and Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations in the evenings, we’ve been hungry for some spice, something new, something mouth-wateringly delicious. We mixed up our usual order. Kyle decided on Moo Shu Pork and I chose the long-awaited Mala – I chose Sichuan Chicken. It was good, just as addictive as they say! I went with medium spicy thinking there was no way I could hang at that level, but it was pleasant for my spice tolerance. I’ve been leaning more toward spicy food recently like gochujang and mango-habanero sauce along with vinegary flavors for the health benefits. It’s definitely refining my palate, from someone who didn’t enjoy spice, to someone who could handle it with dairy, to learning dairy was making me sick, to learning how to manage my spice without any dairy cool down. Isn’t interesting to think about how our tastebuds change?

I’ve watched Mike Chen and his Strictly Dumpling content for five years now, and in that time it has educated me and encouraged me to get out of my comfort zone, such as trying hot pot, appreciating mochi, miso, and now the Sichuan peppercorn. When I first started watching, I didn’t think anything of what I was watching other than, it was an escape to travel vicariously through his content when I was broke, but it has truly been a cuisine education, like watching No Reservations.

Back to the food – Golden Dragon’s Sichuan sauce had so much flavor. I was expecting it to be spice-forward without the layers of flavor, there was sour, savory, sweet, and warming spice. The peppercorn is fragrant, floral, unlike anything I had tasted before. I literally felt warm inside as I ate it! And the numbing sensation was fun, addictive, a rollercoaster ride of taste. I definitely want to try it hotter next time. Something I appreciated was the fact that it didn’t give me a thunderclap headache like Thai chilies have given me in the past. The experience made me so disappointed because the flavor of the Thai chilies was incredible! Oh well, at least I found a new friend in the Sichuan peppercorn.

On Saturday, we were going to go bowling at the local lanes. Both of us enjoyed bowling as kids and hadn’t gone probably since college. With a rainy mist in the fall-like air of May in Western Pennsylvania, we went to explore the unknown of our small town’s bowling alley – it was a rather disappointing discovery. There are those bowling allies stuck in the seventies/eighties that have a certain charm because of their vintage and rundown aesthetic, like a time capsule. There are also those bowling allies that have been renovated that may be stuck in the cosmic bowling thing of the aughts, I don’t mind that. But this place was just unwelcoming.

So we bailed and headed over to the outlets to walk around in the clearing sunshine. I’m really glad we did because there was one of those once-a-season mega sales at Under Armour where my husband was able to find something he had been looking to replace for years! When we started dating in college, he had this pair of neon green sneakers. I think the original pair were from Nike. He wore them to pieces, literally the sole falling into worn-out layers. Since then the trend cycles changed the styles, and there have been no sneakers such as the beloved neon ones. He has hesitated to commit to any pair, finding the necessary pairs to get by but nothing as beloved as the neon green ones with black accents.

Behold! We walked around the outlets, to a far arm where Under Armour resides, a store we tend to avoid because the prices are outrageous. Normally. Not this time, we hit like the motherload of clearance. We just had that feeling, the feeling of we should go in there and I’m so glad we did! Perched toward the back is a glorious neon green shoe, with black accents, as though Kyle sketched out a shoe, and of his dream. The white whale. That’s not the best part! The shoes are on sale for $50, regularly $100+! I was shocked, he was delighted. It was a good trip for sure. I love to see my buddy smile.

Another small delight, I spotted as we made our way our way out of the outlets, was this one car. It had a curious, yet strangely familiar phrase written on its back window. “The one, NCT vega.” I had a feeling, there was another one among us and I was right – I was in the presence of another NCTizen! Anytime I see a K-Pop reference on a car, a shirt, or a hint of a song on the radio, I feel this wonderful sense of camaraderie with whomever the stranger is. They get it. ❤

It was one of those good, simple weekends. I restarted my Stardew Valley farm and my husband leveled up his grilling prowess with an impressively tender pork loin. We closed out our time with the 2023 PBR World Finals and a delicious bowl of ramen. I hope you, dear reader, are able to relax and recharge, whatever that looks like in your schedule. Enjoy the little moments with the ones your love.