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Oh, and one more, just to add a touch of romance:

I don't know how many here (if any) are on Bluesky, but author Claire Willett solicited readers' best/funniest stories of Thanksgiving meals gone wrong. The whole thing is worth a read, if you're on the platform (here's the link: https://bsky.app/profile/clairewillett.bsky.social/post/3m6fypqlkes2p), but I've picked a couple of fun examples to give you all the idea. Some are just basic mistakes: Others have that "family stories that live forever" energy: ...and some are especially inspired examples of Cookery Gone Wrong (MRK, for those who don't know, is a popular/successful science fiction writer). And finally, a moment that somehow turns The Dish We All Dread into something surprising and uplifting:

Asparagus Frittata with Ricotta and Chives from “Dinner” by Melissa Clark - started on the stove and finished in the oven. Made with cut up green asparagus and eggs until bottom lightly set and added some ricotta and chives before putting it in the oven. Afterwards, finished with olive oil, lemon juice and parmesan

Chongqing, 重庆 (chóng qìng) is a major city in south-west China. It is the world’ s largest city by population. Until 1997, it was part of Sichuan province, but was separated by the central government and taken under direct control. Several well known Sichuan dishes originated there. One of their signature street food dishes is 重庆小面 (chóng qìng xiǎo miàn) Chongqing Small Noodles. A simple dish of boiled wheat noodles with some vegetables, pickles, peanuts and seasonings. You can usually then customise this by adding other ingredients of your choice. These consist of meats and beans/peas. Now, inspired by the success of Liuzhou luosifen’s industrialisation, they have begun producing packaged xiao mian to finish at home. Details here. I’m not sure it will reach the level of success they are seeking. I have two reasons. a) the amount of variations are heading for the infinite means they would have to choose just one for mass production. Which one? b) the success of luosifen relied on the dish being impractical and much more expensive to make at home. Its broth alone takes 16 hours simmering. Even more is that authentic luosifen can only really be made here in Liuzhou as it depends on local ingredients, otherwise not available. Xiao mian, on the other hand is easy to make with no unusual ingredients. There are recipes on the internet and Fuchsia Dunlop’s The Food of Sichuan (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) has a good recipe. .

Outside our hotel every night, the baked sweet potato man turned up. We were usually coming home after dinner and didn’t get to try one. He had a wood fired oven on the back of that truck. This is our hotel from the TMGB Here’s a view of Fujisan from the observation deck. Not a bad view given it’s 100 kms away. Tokyo stretches on forever. There are huge speakers up high on the building, we think they are earthquake warning systems. One cool thing we did in Tokyo is take a class in kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending something with gold to make it beautiful. The principal of wabi sabi is appreciation of beauty that is imperfect is at play here. Also, fun fact, I chose this pattern which is one of the classic Japanese styles. It was originally made to represent the waves on the Sea of Japan, but is now more famously known as the wifi symbol. Every time we passed this tiny sashimi restaurant, there was a queue. One day we joined the line and had delicious sashimi in this 7 seat restaurant with two chefs.

Oh boy, I think I could go live at Solaris! But then, the other food looks great too! And thank you for those lovely, evocative photos of the scenery. I can practically see the palm fronds waving. I wasn't aware that there's a push to catch and eat lionfish as pest control. Sounds like a good idea, especially if it's tasty.

That evening we took a “pay what you feel is fair” group walking tour, also via the government tourist agency. It was a different part of Shinjuku than our hotel, we had to take the dreaded train, but got there in time to meet up with about 30 other tourists. It was a really fun tour passing many of the landmark Shinjuku attractions, including the “red light” district, and golden-gai. The animatronic cat was mesmerising, I could have watched for hours. He or she changes outfits and poses regularly. The famous Godzilla is also animated, and even breathes fire. Fun ! It’s very much a night time hot spot. The Golden-Gai district is full of tiny alleys, filled with even tinier bars, some of which have a set membership and no one else gets in. Others can charge a cover fee, we didn’t avail as the tour marched on. The boy/girl companion industry is huge. Some of the more popular teens make 7 figure salaries !! One effectively pays a certain amount to spend time with one’s crush. Strictly companionship, there’s no hanky panky. These adds below are for the popular ones. Here’s where the hanky panky happens….this is a “love hotel” where you can choose to pay an hourly rate. Many young Japanese people still live with their parents and therefore use these hotels for getting to know someone better 😉 We were told that often tourists will book the hotels because they are relatively cheap, unusually large rooms and often have jacuzzi’s. Note no windows.

I love the story! And I'm sure the sandwiches were delicious: at least as good as something I might have picked up at a roadside stop, but made with much, much, much more love. I hope you'll indulge yourself with the hard-cooked egg and slice of cheese on bread, at least for yourself (and post it in the Breakfast topic). Just because some of us looked askance at the idea doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad idea. Without reviewing the responses, I'm pretty sure that everyone (including me) who answered with a "nix, nyet, no" is a Northerner. If you're nostalgic for it, you may have lots of company in your neck of the woods.

We availed of one of the free Japan guides via the tourist agency and visited Meiji Jingu Shrine with her as well as Shibuya crossing. There’s about 70 ha of garden surrounding the shrine and later we would see the garden from the 45th floor observation deck of TMGB. She also helped us to navigate Shinjuku Station which worked well the one time we were with her. Later, not so much. Shinjuku Station is the busiest in Japan with a daily passenger throughput of 2.7M it was also undergoing renovations when we were there. Guide lady left us at Shibuya where we had a yummy lunch at a hole in the wall. There was a wedding ceremony soon to happen at Meiji Shingu, yes ordinary people can apply to hold their matrimonials there. These sake barrels are donated to make merit I think. These were the first of many gyoza. This looks like more chicken stir fry. There was a short queue to get into this place, so we didn’t feel we could linger.

Re: hard fried egg sandwich: I was just nostalgic for a hard fried egg on white bread with a slice of American cheese sandwich from my childhood. ☺️ Mayo on one side, mustard on the other, and salt and lots of black pepper on the egg. Since my granddaughter was joining me, I needed to get things prepped before she arrived. First, I fried up a bunch of sausage patties, allowed them to cool, and put them in the fridge. (Dark color, not burned.) Next, I baked sheet pan scrambled eggs topped with cheese And baked some frozen biscuits (2 batches) At this point the camera was forgotten because … three year old. Her job was to use a mason jar lid to cut the eggs into rounds, and pop them out, in her words. Her interest lasted long enough to cut eighteen egg rounds and go through two pairs of hot pink disposable gloves. While she played outside with the dogs and Gramps, I put the sandwiches together and wrapped them in foil and refrigerated, because before delivery I needed to paint some fingernails, apply some pretend makeup (and a little real, don’t tell), and be impressed that she could spell her name in blocks. We ended up with 25 sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits to deliver. They weren’t gorgeous, as you can tell by the elements pictured. And if you can cut eggs into rounds, they’re probably overcooked. That’s two days in a row that I wasn’t satisfied with the final product. I have two loaves of honey wheat and a bunch of peanut butter & jelly, so maybe I’ll try that tomorrow.

Quite possibly, or was it potato salad ?

A large chicken meatball maybe?

It was May 2024 when we took our second trip to Japan. Note, I had a break from the EG community due to slow internet and low patience at our previous house. We’ve moved, I’m back. The trip was 18 months ago, so my memory may be hazy, chime in and correct me if you know better. The occasion was our 30 year anniversary and I made the decision to go about 3 weeks prior to the date. Because of this I engaged a travel agent friend to organise the trip, giving her broad parameters and a budget. She spent a lot of the budget on high end hotels which I wouldn’t normally choose, and a 5 day JR pass for our various Shinkansen rides. The trip started in Tokyo, then to Hakone for a stay in a traditional ryokan (the anniversary), then on to Kyoto and a night in Hiroshima. All in it was 11 days and we saw two new places and revisited two, being Tokyo and Kyoto. We stayed in luxury in Tokyo, the Keiko Plaza Hotel. It is close to the ginormous Shinjuku Station, wherein we got lost numerous times, and directly opposite the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. This building has a nightly light show and we had prime viewing from our spacious 27th floor room. It also has a free observation deck with views over Tokyo all the way to Mt Fuji. We had a daytime flight from the east coast of Australia, arriving at Narita late afternoon. There’s only a 2 hour time difference, so we hit the ground running and went out to snack our way around the area. It was a bustling and packed with dining choices. This is basically step out of the hotel and here you are. I can’t remember what this is. Guesses welcome. This looks to me like a stir fry of some kind.

https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/various-pistachios-and-pistachio-containing-products-recalled-due-salmonella-5

When I make shrimp or crap or lobster or have some leftover seafood I always throw it into a bag and into the freezer. When its time or I need the space, then I make seafood stock. With the upcoming holidays I did that, then any leftover seafood I had in the freezers, I made seafood gumbo. I was really pleased with how the roux turned out as you can see the stages.

I don't know! Maybe? The official name is La Española Meats, Inc., so maybe? Inside their store, they have a counter with meat selection like at a typical deli, and also their website has an option to purchase imported or local sausages: https://laespanolameats.com/meats/dona-juana/ Neat!

Me too, I'm definitely interested. And, I'm wishing you a nourishing holiday.

@jedovaty Interesting is the "" La Española "" that makes and sells top end ' Spanish chorizo ' but made locally in CA ? I used to get some of those Chorizo's and they were very very good . same as in Spain.

What exactly is your time frame from a) finished meals at home and ready to go to b)be placed in the community fridge to c) pick up by eating public? No, there is no rush on this question. Just trying to get it all straight.

Interesting play on the traditional Sicilian pesto known as Pesto Alla Trapanese, which is made with fresh tomatoes, almonds, garlic, cheese, olive oil, basil, and mint. Traditionally, the pasta used is busiate, a special pasta from, yes, Trapani. Good stuff, though I prefer my Brussels sprouts on the side. Why ruin a perfectly fine pasta dish?! 😉

Maybe egg salad sandwiches? I like my yolks runny but egg salad on whole wheat (with some romaine or spinach or sprouts is a pretty healthy lunch or dinner. Those and some carrot, pepper strips on the side?

That's the choice? Of course, so many choices would not work as the bread would get so soggy. Hmmm... I've never really given it much thought before. I googled the topic to see what I could find and the vast majority of them are too 'wet'to last the time frame required or too costly for your budget. The only one I could see using is a pulled meat. But then you've obviously done your homework.

I'm interested, too!

Just a note on another interesting item Misfits had: Garleeks . I love green onions, I bought these out of curiosity. I should have bought 1 bundle, but I didn't know the size and got 2. It's a large bundle of garleeks. Been using them as I would green onions, they are a bit sweeter and not as "hot" on the tongue. The greens I used in Emerald sauce, a local creation by Chino Bandito restaurant. A very simple recipe. 3 cups minced green onion 1 cup minced fresh ginger root 2 teaspoons salt About 2 cups vegetable oil

That soup sounds fantastic! My guess is the tomato water. The gel around the seeds has a lot of proteins and pectin, so when it heats up it can create that scum layer. It won’t hurt the flavor, but it’s annoying to skim in a thick soup. If you want to use the juice again, straining it more finely or heating it separately first might help.