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Gutterpunk burritos with a side of corn with butter, paprika, and nutritional yeast.

Pork Curry with Turmeric Rice and Pear-Pepper-Chutney from essen & trinken magazine - chunks of pork shoulder are braised with curry paste mixture (coriander, black pepper, cumin, fennel, shallots, garlic, ginger and lime zest), tomato paste and star anise in chicken broth. Towards the end sweet potatoes, corn cob and green beans are added. Finished with some Thai basil. Served with turmeric rice (basmati rice, coconut oil, turmeric, parsley) and a red bell pepper and pear chutney (roasted bell peppers, pear, ginger, sugar and apple cider vinegar cooked together)

Eating with friends, you may be asked what 主食 (zhǔ shí falling and rising tone, then neutral tone) you prefer. This expression means 'staple food' but really means 'rice or noodles', China's choices. Having learned this you may be tempted to use it yourself, next time. Be careful. Forget that first tone and accidentally say 猪食 (zhū shi), flat tone and you've just asked your friends what kind of pig swill they prefer!

Following up on this: in case someone's interested, I snapped a photo of the works in progress, because my description may not have been clear. I still wouldn't bother buying another.

I'm out of the cold country! It took about 9 hours of driving against or across a stiff wind yesterday, and learning what that feels like (and what it does to fuel mileage) but I'm settled for a few days where I can get ready for "regular" camping -- that is, self-contained boondocking, I hope, or at least being able to use my own water. Today I flushed the lines of antifreeze, to the best of my ability, and filled the water tank. The water is still fizzy and vaguely pink, and not especially pleasant to drink, so i'll continue using bottled water until it's all flushed below my personal detection limit. This was yet one more reason my darling always wanted to be gone by now: I really detested the lingering taste of RV antifreeze, so when we bought a new trailer we ensured that the stuff had never contaminated the pipes. But that meant, of course, that we had to leave before the temperatures dropped below freezing. (One year we did have a severe cold drop in October, so we winterized that Princessmobile that year. It was only for a couple of weeks, and I don't recall having objectionable flavors. Holding time is probably a factor; this Princessmobile was winterized several months ago.) I luxuriated this morning in the idea that I could have my OWN coffee (once I found the stuff) and didn't have to go anywhere in particular. Sunshine outside, steamy coffee in bed! Yay! The coffee mug has a wedding photo from my best friend's youngest son's wedding in Kenya last summer. I'm farther around in the photo, next to my best friend and the happy couple; I'm "Auntie Nancy" to the gang. I've never written here about the Kenyan food I sampled, but you may see some of it later this winter. It was delicious. There's a prairie dog town across the field. I finally know what those mystery "birds" are that chirp so peculiarly from the ground. 🙂 I'll need to go to town tomorrow for fuel and, believe it or not, a few groceries. I finished off the yogurt today, and I think there are other things on the list as well. I worked hard getting the Princessmobile ready (mostly) and waited far too long for lunch; it became dinner. Still, I had a chance to try out my new cast iron griddle atop the stove. I haven't had much luck cooking grilled cheese sandwiches on cast iron at home without smoking up the kitchen, and that's why I almost brought along my panini press. Today's trial worked pretty well, though, Salami, turkey, Havarti cheese (I'm out of the other sliced stuff), mayo, mustard, on sourdough bread. I'd already had an uncooked version of this sandwich. As much as I like that bread's flavor it's a bit too soft without being toasted or griddled. This worked out much better. Butter on the outside for the griddling. Salad greens and pickles added after griddling. It isn't the "ooh, what will I cook first when I have time?" dinner I'd envisioned, but it's all I had the energy for.

Valentine's Day 2026 Chocolates caramel, passion fruit, and chocolate ganache

It looks pretty to me! That is one of my favourite "I need something but have no energy" meals. Another iteration that I like is a sweet potato with baked beans.

Working on the hotel block - the woman who handles the block bookings at the better priced and free parking hotel was away on holiday for the last 3 weeks so I finally tracked her down on Friday and we hopefully will sort the details this week.

Not pretty, but tasty. Baked potato with chili and cheese.

@blue_dolphin I would so eat that. So colourful, I can almost taste it. Since the surgery two weeks ago, I have been working on figuring out what I can eat without issues. I made my chicken stew last week and it sat well. So this morning I made another chicken stew with dumplings for Moe's breakfast and I'm going to take it to work for lunch. I like both my chicken and beef stews to be very brothy, not thick. This is Moe's bowl, hence the carrots.

Count me in, Ruth already had you add me to the list. Jared A.

I just scaled a recipe for frozen roasted peach yogurt. The recipe called for roasting 32 Oz. Of peaches with sugar which gave me 7.75 ounces of roasted peaches of which I used 2.25 ounces for this experiment. I don't need to add any sugar, just a bit of lemon juice and vanilla. I'll blitz that and freeze it. Hope it works. Edit: i should have said yogurt, not ice cream. Sorry for any confusion.

What are the favorite knife shops in Tokyo? @Duvel - have you any insight?

I don’t have this thing but I do have the Ninja Creami and regularly scale ice cream recipes down to one pint. Most work just fine but anything that needs to be held at a simmer or thereabouts for more than a couple of min can end up with too much evaporation because the surface area to volume ratio tends to get too high, compared to a bigger batch. That’s been the case in the 1 qt saucier I use. That would be something to watch for.

The Rice Factory just got in a shipment from the 2025 rice harvest. So I had to indulge. 5 lbs. of Hokkaido Yumepirika - 50% milled 5 lbs. of Minamiuonuma Koshihikari - as white rice (100% milled) - this is the classic sushi rice Some pickling mixture to push the total above the free shipping level.

@ElsieD out of curiosity , your unit from Costco came w 4 ' cups ' I corrected my initial Amazon ref post to 3 , as that version had 3 . cheaper w more cups @ Costco , but no extra cups there or AMZN.CA Odd.

Thank you for that link @AAQuesada. Unfortunately shipping is more than the trimoline! Will see if they have more items that I need so that I can bring the item cost to shipping cost ratio to something more reasonable. Hoping someone else has a source that is closer to Virginia.

Isn't that great?!

I agree, and I wish I had the chance to eat seafood by the sea. I've done it, hope to do it again, but right now I'm enjoying the vicarious trip. I would have an awful time choosing what to eat, given those menus! The menus and the food shown look wonderful, but I'd be tempted to have conch chowder, or conch fritters, each and every time. I'm glad you, @liamsaunt, are more adventuresome that that.

That would even fit in the Princessmobile!

@ElsieD waiting for your review.

For you, @rotuts Fits like a glove.

On-line it was $79.99 at Costco USA. If the on-line pricing differs the same way as ours does for this, it might be $69.99. (enabler that i am)

Other than the cold water, the waves look just right for bodysurfing. Just sayin' 😉 Food looks fantastic, too! Eating seafood by the sea is one of my favorite things.

" Fits in a drawer ' Oooooo , Ooooooooo .