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I remember in the 1960s being given for a birthday or Christmas one of those new hi-tech hand held "transistor radios" or "trannies" as they were known long before that word took on a new meaning. They ran on those 9-volt batteries and were incredibly unreliable, so we often had to lick our batteries to see if they were the problem or the tranny had died! How I first heard great music.

In my world, a whippet was something else -- and not a dog breed.

Lots of rain for us too. Tomatoes are slow getting red, but doing OK. Early Girl >> Celebrity in flavor. Henry-the-turd only got one good one.

OMG I missed this until now. I love Peeps. And wine. This must be a sign.

Yes.

I'm jealous of all of you and your berries! We've gotten SO much rain this summer. Our property has been in the monsoon sweet spot. From April until now we've gotten roughly 30" of rain. That's a lot for us. Rain gauge from July 24th am to July 25th am--almost 6 inches. \\ The lake in the background is the garden. Getting enough tomatoes to eat every day plus a ton of cherry tomatoes that I'm drying and keeping in olive oil. Dunno about any canning this year....the plants are stunted and even the green tomatoes are splitting. Plus side is we've barely had to run the irrigation which saves a ton on fuel. The river flooded a bit a few weeks ago but I don't think it did much damage to the corn. We'll see how August and September go. It's hot as hell --humidity is through the roof as you can imagine. We are under heat warnings most every day lately. Cucumbers are doing well. Peppers are super stunted. Maybe by December I'll get some jalapeños 🙄. Harvested all of the onions. Several had rotted due to the rain but I still have a nice stash in the fridge outside. Tons of watermelons on but I'll be shocked if they have any flavor. Too much rain makes them...well, too watery. Green beans are just now coming on. Anyway, just a little garden update from over here.

Gazpacho is another idea for those overripe tomatoes. Refreshing, filling, cool / cold.

Is fried mantou a thing there? I've seen that in Singapore...

I've seen this in a few places in Indonesia also - but always in places that are serving foreigners, almost exclusively - like dive resorts whose clientele is mainly European or Australian (and the odd American or two). Otherwise there's nothing resembling bread at all. Unless, of course, you're in a cafe or higher class hotel in Jakarta, in which case all bets are off. It could be just like a French boulangerie in those places!

So many nice people here on eG , eh ? F.D.: I use the ' eh ? ' out of great respect for our friends N of the B .

I had no idea that "9v battery" might be a flavor to humans. This comic strip showed AI's loving it - but, well, they're robots. 🙂 I'll leave the battery tasting, on chips or off, to other people.

I would commit atrocities to have a supermarket like the first post near me.

Get well soon! ❤️

Like slice of toast with your breakfast? You could use your phone translation app to ask for toast in a restaurant. You won’t get it though unless you are in a hotel breakfast room or restaurant catering to foreigners. All the translation apps translate toast as 土司 (tǔ sī). This, as you can see, is a sound-alike loanword from the English toast. Except it doesn’t mean toast at all. It is what linguists call ‘a false friend’. Sort of like when French learners guess ‘travail’ means ‘travel’, when it means ‘work’. It simple means 'sliced bread'. Some joker saw sliced bread and assumed it was that mysterious thing he’d heard of but never seen – toast. Misnamed it and it stuck. So, that's what you’ll get. Dreadful, low-quality blotting paper slices of CWP ‘bread’. Often sweet, too. 土司 (tǔ sī) - 'toast'? Here’s a tip. Instead of asking for 土司 (tǔ sī), try asking for 烤面包 (kǎo miàn bāo) . This is a more accurate translation and translates as ‘broiled / grilled bread’. However they will in 99% of cases take some of the blotting paper and broil that then serve it cold.

Chicken noodle with dumplings soup.

I’ve said this before and I’ll likely say it again because it bugs me. If you are coming to China for any reason and are partial to the occasional sandwich, unless you are in Beijing or Shanghai, you will be out of luck. Most Chinese don’t know what bread is, They think they do but are very mistaken. What passes for bread here is 99% of the time cake. Bread shaped cake. Breadalike. China’s breads are almost all steamed rather than baked. So I’d like to introduce you to some of what I can buy anywhere but never do (and a few exceptions). I’ll start with 馒头 (mán tou), probably the most common. This is a steamed roll made from the same dough as 包子 (bāo zi), bao buns, but unfilled and often sweetened with sugar. Occasionally, they are coloured using vegetable (or artificial) dyes. depending on what colouring agent is used, these may or mat not taste any different from the plain ones. Images from Meituan online shopping app,

It only worked with this type of battery as you needed to lick both terminals together. It was done to test if the battery still had a charge or not. If it was fully charged you got an uncomfortable 9-volt shock; if dead, nothing. Your saliva completed the circuit. It wasn't that unpleasant but I sure wouldn't want to be eating 9-volt chips.

It sure looks small. Would your bread pans fit? Can it roast a 5lb chicken?

It's no bother.

I didn't know about Whippets before! Weird, I checked the box on these things and 2 of them said "Made in Canada". I was so ashamed. Hahahahahaha 🙂 Edited to add: I did know about Whippets, my brother (as a kid) loved them and I thought they were disgusting. But when you said the raspberry splotch, it reminded me!!!!!

Whippet - the Canadian version of the Mallowmar - my favourite had the raspberry splotch.

The Whippet looks like a Mallowmar... I used to love those as a kid.... but not in pink! https://www.snackworks.com/brands/mallomars/

I hate to trouble you to do that. I checked using my UPS portal (through work) and all they asked was where it was being shipped from - they didn't care where it was originally manufactured. According to my UPS portal, they said that at a value of $300, it was considered "duty type: 09, low value" and had no duty applied.

If @KennethT would like, i can call Customs Monday to find out what the duty, if any, would be.

The tariff rules have been changing by the week here lately. A month ago, China had over a 100% duty, now it's like 30%. As far as I know, the tariff has been converted since it was already imported into Canada. So the origin is now Canada - it shouldn't matter where it was originally made - it is being shipped from Canada to the US. When I used my UPS portal, they just wanted to know where it was shipping from to calculate duty, they didn't ask where it was actually made. And my UPS portal told me that (when using a cost of $300) that there was no duty as it had too low of a value. The only time it matters where it was made is if it isn't actually being imported into Canada yet - if it's being shipped to the US via Canada, but doesn't stop and go through customs in Canada and actually enter Canada. But if it's being purchased in a Canadian store, then it has been converted, so the country of origin would be Canada, as far as I know.