Rolly polly fish heads...

My tanker truck.

Normally when I shop for my groceries at the Seafood City Market -- 25 miles away -- I bring a tanker truck. Well, not really a tanker truck, that's an exaggeration, but I and my husband, buy a lot since we drive that far for our supply. We get a lot of seafood like bangus, pompano, tilapia, shrimps, catfish, and etc. Last weekend, however, we stayed away from tilapia, shrimps and catfish as most of these come from China. Although the importation of these (from China) have already been blocked by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) we'd rather not get any. It's best to be safe than eat fish loaded with whatever they found in those seafood. Click here and here for more.

"My trip is canceled?"

Now all seafood at the store were marked the country of origin; wild caught or farm raised. I never knew before that they come from countries like Vietnam, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Indonesia, India, Singapore, Philippines and Taiwan. Some are US products. Mussels that I usually get come from New Zealand marked clearly on the package.

I wandered to the dry goods area to get a pack of Shiitake mushrooms (dried), and lo and behold, it's from...you know...and all brands. I'm not sure about it anymore, so I passed it. I'm not going to use any Shiitake for now.

The veggies I supposed are mostly local. If not it probably did not come from that far. There were some things I bought that were Philippine products...jars of halo-halo mix - kaong, makapuno, munggo beans, white beans and langka.

Halo-halo would be great to cool us off these hot...hot summer days.