In preparation for an early morning board meeting, I am staying up at a hotel near work, where the board meeting will be. So, I thought I would take the chance to eat somewhere interesting in Fort Collins. Young’s Cafe popped up on Yelp when I searched for pho, they actually don’t have pho available at night, but I saw some other things I was interested in. First, since I am easily suggestible, and someone posted something about dumplings and I read it, I had to have some dumplings. Fried shu mai to be exact. They were OK, nothing special, they kind of had the temperature and texture that indicated they were being “held” in the kitchen and just (maybe) warmed up when someone ordered them.

Then I asked my waiter if the Lemongrass soup or the Flaming soup was better. He said if I liked seafood, the lemongrass soup was better, because it had shrimp, mussels, and squid, whereas the flaming soup only had shrimp and vegetables. Well, the flaming soup was also FLAMING but I decided to save that for another time. This soup didn’t have little wussy calamari rings in it, it had big chunks of squid, large flat pieces. Well, I knew I was getting squid and I don’t mind that. Kind of sad when I am eating a meal like this alone and don’t have anyone with me to gross out with my big chunks of squid. Four good sized mussels, so that was nice. And it was VERY lemongrassy and NICELY spicy, usually I have to ask for the chili oil or the sriracha sauce even with “spicy” soup but this was just perfect, plenty of chili oil.

Yes, that big white thing is the squid. And yummy mushrooms too.

I also hadn’t had a chance to go thrifting in Fort Collins yet, and I have been reading a new blog that got me excited about Jello  – The Jello Mold Mistress of Brooklyn, and I think I will doing some Jello-ing, so I wanted to look for some cheap Jello molds. The Goodwill was very disappointing, the Salvation Army was their office location, not their store (need to do more research next time) but The ARC Thrift Store came through for me.

So now I have 4 Jello molds to experiment with. I have told myself I can’t buy any more until I make something in each of these. Like many of my projects, I may lose interest after I get started, so this may be a good idea. They can always get donated back to Goodwill….

I also can’t resist vintage textiles, especially wool blankets. My dream is to find a Pendleton wool blanket at a rummage sale someday. Well, this one is a Faribault, and it is not 100% wool, but it was extra interesting for another reason.

Specially made for Continental Airlines! I thought that was pretty cool! And it was in good condition, a good sofa size throw blanket, I couldn’t resist. You can always use blankets, right?

Maybe I should pack this one and take it on my next airplane jaunt…

Did you vote in the poll yet on which recipe I will be making for your enjoyment? For cryin’ out loud, why not?