Yogurt and cigarettes

Here's an interesting promotion: Free ashtray with your purchase of 6 yogurts! Yeah, nothing goes together quite like Yogurt and Tobacco. Anyway, we saw this little gem of a deal on our grocery shopping expedition last night. Let me tell you, its hard to find stuff for a Thanksgiving dinner in Shanghai. No sweet potatoes! And I thought the sweet potato was from here originally. I'll have to check my horticulture facts. Anyway, we decided to purchase some Durian, which we tried for the first time. Durian (or Jack Fruit) for those of you who don't know, is a large spiky fruit. Sort of like a watermelon from hell. We've been told that its the kind of fruit that you either love or hate, and tonight we found out why.

It smells vaguely of rotten eggs in baby diapers. However, it tastes like vanilla pudding.

that's not a joke, that's really what it tastes like. The smell is terrible, but once you get it in your mouth, its actually quite nice. I remember being warned by my friend Toan about the smell, and so I held my nose when I tried it. Not bad. Second try, I tried it without holding my nose. Kinda gross. Third try - nose held. Pretty good. After that, I got past the smell pretty quickly. In fact, its hard to believe that there is anything that occurs naturally with such a complex and interesting taste. So, yes, I'm one of those who have found that they do indeed love the taste.

Who knew? Baby diapers and vanilla pudding. They go together like yogurt and cigarettes.