liuzhou

Here for anyone not familiar with the concept are a couple of tree slice boards. Ginkgo Wood These ginkgo boards are found in China and Japan. Ginkgo wood is more on the softer side. However, they are expensive. Pine Board Another softer wood. All these boards also come with steel rings to minimise warping and the price depends on diameter and thickness.

The label is about normal around here. I found toasting improves it.

… and then there’s this Wheat Mix Bread, The bakery is in Beijing and doesn’t claim dual nationality, settling instead on German. However, it’s firmly Chinese and most of their goods are the same old Chinese not-bread bread. They sell these OK 500g loaves for $5.75 a loaf, but recently slapped on a ridiculous $5.16 delivery charge, essentially doubling the price. I had been buying them for about two years at a much lower delivery price. The sourdough above has free delivery, so these fake Germans are now off my shopping list.

One saving grace. I’ve never met anyone in China who knows what sourdough is but I know the Chinese; it’s 酸面包 (suān miàn bāo), literally sour bread. A couple of months ago, I found this online, described by the seller as “Whole Wheat Sourdough Rubon Country Bread Multi-grain French Old Bread German Sourdough Bread”! The sellers are obviously confused. Rubon county doesn’t exist and isn’t even a possible Chinese name and as far as I remember France and Germany are two different countries. The bread is baked in Anhui province, 1,368 km / 850 miles from me. It takes 2-3 days to arrive, but isn’t bad, if not great. It’s also rather pricy for China at $7.25 USD for a 500 gram loaf. But needs must..

The chicken skin fruit trees have just cropped and it's a bumper harvest this year. These pictures were sent me by a friend in Wuxuan, a town near here.

That what the sandalwood boards are - slices of tree trunk. I've seen the same with the other true woods I've mentioned.

I do regularly eat white button mushrooms. Never had a problem in 50 + years.

Yes, but.... They last for a few days, which baguettes in France (or Vietnam) don't. In France four hours at best. In Vietnam, bánh mì sellers get two or three deliveries or bake the same number of batches throughout the day. In France, you have to get up early or go without.

We also get 法棍 (fǎ gùn), literally French sticks. These are baguettes 🥖. Sometimes. Never great, the best come from Walmart or a Taiwan chain of restaurants here on mainland China. Those from local bakeries are highly unpredictable. They aren’t anywhere close to the real French baguettes my French grandmother bought every morning, but are edible bread. Walmart China Baquettes

The rosewood is too hard a wood and my knives don't like it. The bamboo ones are the ones I use more for cutting bread or soft meats (not the same boards) but scar easily if I say, chop through bones. I prefer boards somewhere in-between. I have three different sizes of the bamboo but I generally prefer the sandalwood for heavier use. Must get a new one. The old one disappeared in my last house move.

Are croissants bread? Arguable. Wikipedia describes them as a cross between bread and flaky pastry, but Wikipedia is flaky, itself. The Chinese name is 牛角面包 (niú jiǎo miàn bāo), literally cow horn bread. Whatever, the vendors of these translate them as croissants which they 100% aren’t. Although hinting at being crescent-shaped but forgetting to curve, in fact, in addition to looking slightly under baked, they contain in their depths industrial ham and pink slime sausages dressed with sweet mayonnaise. A hanging crime in that France.

Maybe in southern Asia, but in China and SE Asia most cutting boards are made from bamboo (not technically a wood, but a grass). A few more are made from Ironwood, rosewood or sandalwood. I have both bamboo and rosewood. Neither are great.

Here is the Guardian's Felicity Cloake's take on it How to make piri piri chicken – recipe | Chicken | The Guardian

Titanium. Idiotic idea. I do buy this. Seldom use it, but it's very cut resistant and seems kind to my knives. Handy in emergencies.

But enough good news. As if the abovementioned toast wasn't bad enough, beware of this. It is the dreaded 'toast' again but this time unsliced and worse. It is called 红豆吐司 (hóng dòu tǔ sī) and is flavoured with sweet red aduki bean paste. Very sweet and nasty cake; not what I call bread..