Blueberry Fields Forever

This is the Parlee Farms petting zoo in which it seemed like there were only goats. The hungry goats behaved like dogs, looking up and eagerly awaiting for food from the dispensary.

So, with a month before school rolls around again, it seems that my activities have become increasingly cheesy. This weekend, my family and the dog went to Parlee Farms in Tyngsboro, Massachusetts, to pick exceptionally large and delicious blueberries.

Flower field

Surprisingly, the "low-hanging fruit" were not all taken, but there were enough pay-by-the-pound blueberries to go around for the crowds there. Several families filled their buckets to the brim.

Blueberry bushes

My bucket stock photo

There must be a special note for the unusually high number of Chinese families there, many equipped with sun hats. I have an honest theory. 

Life may have began in the sea, but, for many Chinese, life began in the countryside. There is a Cantonese word (I don't know Mandarin unfortunately) for the romanticized, agrarian, and bucolic old ideal of living a simple life farming and tending animals. It is like "hillbilly country" that can be meant in either a positive or deprecating way, as in old-fashioned, run-down, or underdeveloped. Anyways, some people told me stories of getting education early on farms as part of the Cultural Revolution. In addition, China developed and modernized very rapidly, but heavy urbanization was not always the case several decades ago. The existing connection to agrarian ideals in a modern society is quite fascinating and made for a fun day.

To conclude, here is a picture of a big blueberry. After washing "the fruits of our labor," the berries were extremely fresh with all of them sweet, which is unusual especially compared to hit-or-miss supermarket blueberries that make one wonder about the long, mechanized supply chain to bring food from a farm to the table. Kudos to Parlee Farms!

Biggest blueberry I found

Cruise Chaos

See my post about Bermuda here.

The ship herself (himself? Check your privilege!)

My feelings on this cruise are more mixed and jumbled than my complimentary Bingo card with 4 four-ways each missing one number.

Disembarking Boston touristy photo

They always take 2!

After getting on-board, a natural instinct is to explore the man-made quarters of hedonism in all of its cheap art glory.

Baby catching fish

Atrium, ooooh. "And she's buying a stairway to heaven..."

Check out dat vase. "I'm all about that vase, bout that vase, no treble"

Meet my friend The Vase

This was a Holland America cruise (synonymous with tameness and old people) to Bermuda from Saturday, 7/4 to Saturday, 7/11. I believe I read some materials along the lines of, "If you want to stay up late and party, this is not the cruise for you." YES!

Here, there was a mandatory safety demonstration that interrupted my sampling of the buffet, forcing me to leave the food. At least, I took a picture of part of the Boston port's supply chain.

Cool

Note: This is a post of epic length, and many are too unfocused to read anything in its entirety including myself on occasion, but I strongly suggest that you click read more anyways for better materials.

Peach Farm Restaurant

On 5/26, we went to Peach Farm in Boston's cloistered Chinatown to celebrate a birthday. I have been to so many Chinese restaurants sometimes repeatedly and not many other types since my family mostly patronizes them out of familiarity and comfort, and the restaurants are usually not good deals compared to other delicious cultural fares and cuisine. Hey, it's whatever floats their dragon boat!

Peach Farm was unique, or maybe because I started taking pictures now, in its delivery of authentic Chinese food. However, it suffered from the native culture syndrome where the food just wasn't as good as food in the homeland, and I try to disbelieve the location effect since people think Apple makes high-quality products even though they are made in China. However, with Chinese food, it really tastes better in China, and I will describe how.

Pictured are, to the best of my fuzzy memory, Peking duck, spicy fried shrimp, oysters, and some pork meat thingy. For some reason, the Peking duck tasted more stale, less fresh, and more plain than in China, but it was still satisfactorily good.

This was probably the largest oyster I've ever seen, and it was fluffy.

For a new view, going from noon clockwise, there is saucy pork, Cantonese-style lobster with ginger and scallion, soft shell crab, a vegetable, soy sauce chicken, and clams. Unfortunately, since my food excursions are out of order, I don't fully recall my feelings and opinions on the food beside considering that it passes as Chinese food. So, I guess this post is more of an unfortunate, short-run pictures dump rather than a good review. Well, enjoy anyways!

No Name Restaurant

Not shady at all

On 6/14, we went to No Name to celebrate something that happens only once in a lifetime: our lively grandma's 86th birthday. Arriving at the Seaport District, a redeveloped, gentrifying, and magnificent feat of urban planning with inviting public spaces and views of Boston Harbor, we found parking in a fishy-looking pier. With aisles of nondescript businesses only described by a plain sign, this pier looked like something from a mafia movie, where the strong fishy smell probably masked the decay of a bullet-ridden body (just kidding!).

The enigmatically named No Name is apparently a historical fixture from 1917. I don't normally care about the interior of a restaurant since I'm there for the food, but it was appropriately nautically-themed with the typical wooden interior, nets, and rescue circles that try to impress a John F. Kennedy sailing feel. Anyways, our moderately large group sat on the first floor by the glass windows with views of the water and, ironically, Legal Seafood, which was packed and too mainstream.

Simple 1-page menu, I like this over the reams at many Chinese restaurants

There was also a seagull slowly strutting down the pier runway with its strong stick legs, but I didn't take a picture.

The Food - Starting with Appetizers

So, the complimentary garlic bread didn't have much juice and tasted like dry garlic bread, which is fair since that wasn't the main attraction. The cole slaw was also like cole slaw and slightly below par. However, the generous helpings of fries were very satisfying with the right amount of crisp and salt. The seafood chowdah (excuse my half-genuine accent) was also good and mostly runny versus creamy.

The Seafood
Lobster orders came with gently batter-fried shrimp and scallops bedded on addictingly good and tangy-tasting tarter sauce, even if its color is yellowish-green as some Yelp! reviewers described. (I'm not oblivious to the 2.5 stars bad rating, but I like this restaurant overall.)

This lobstah went to Hahvad

The boiled lobstah was teenager-sized and succulent, but, then again, it's almost impossible to screw up a boiled lobster. My brother unwillingly surrendered part of his steak, which was very bland and definitely not this seafood restaurant's forte. The fish seafood platter was good with a variety of oily omega-3 fish, which I like, and went well with the tasty wild rice platters.

The crown jewel of our order

However, the fried clams were the most intriguing and favored item. They were runny with delicious, slightly bitter juice and chewiness that dissolved with the batter on the tongue. I would recommend this.

Well, we left with full stomachs, and tip was included in the receipt, although I felt a bit like I was having a "salt attack" since the fries and this type of food are high sodium to match the ocean water.