liuzhou

I wouldn't have been able to resist, then I would sit at home looking at it thinking what the hell am I going to with this. A frequent quandary I find myself facing.

In my limited experience, definitely not.

Chicken and okra with black beans and red rice. Shanghai greens (上海青) with oyster sauce.

I can't stand the stuff myself*, but linguistically 'macaroni' as a word is interesting. Obviously it comes from Italian, originally as 'maccaroni' and later 'maccheroni' and, as already pointed out orginally just meant pasta. The first recorded usage in English is from Ben Jonson, a contemporary and fellow playwright of Shakespeare's. It was then defined as 'a kind of wheaten paste, of Italian origin, formed into long tubes and dried for use as food'. The first mention in English of macaroni with cheese is from 1769 in a Mrs. Raffald's book The Englishe Housekeeper where she writes of dressing macaroni with parmesan. The usage of the word arose about 1760 and referred to young men who had travelled and affected the tastes and fashions prevalent in continental society. So a dandy. This usage seems to be from the name of the Macaroni Club, a designation probably adopted to indicate the preference of the members for foreign cookery, macaroni being at that time little eaten in England. The name also refers a type of penguin, Eudyptes chrysolophus or a macaroni penguin. It is also a type of poem in which two or more languages are mingled together, a type of walking stick, a woodworking knife/chisel and in Australian slang 'nonsense'or 'meaningless talk'. As to Mac and Cheese, it was never called that in the UK until recently when the Americanism crept in. It was always 'macaroni and cheese' or, more often, 'macaroni cheese'. There is credible evidence that it was first introduced to the Americas by Scottish emigrants to Canada and then travelled south. The Scots got it from Italian immigrants to Scotland. * My mother made it often and it was the only food I refused to eat no matter how many threats of severe punishment! The rest of the family loved it. One of my brothers so much so that for years my mother had to ship packs of Marshall's Macaroni to him in Spain where he lives and has three restaurants. He won't eat any other brand. Beats me. As you can see, it is 'elbow pasta' but never called that in the UK. It's just macaroni.

... and then an hour later this arrived. 2 kilos of locally grown mango jam. Well, they don't grow jam! Just the mangos and the sugar.

Recently found a reliable source for these. 黑牛肝菌 (hēi niú gān jūn) - Black Boletes (Phlebopus portentosus, Tylopilus alboater or Boletus aereu. One of the few boletes that can be cultivated. Inedible when raw, but cooked have a rich unami taste and a nutty flavour. Me likes.

Today's haul (by delivery service). Matsutake, chicken's feet and a frozen chicken breast. I have a plan. Black bolete. Part of plan. These are not cheap and are sold singly. Peeled, cleaned shrimp. I usually buy these live, but recently found these which, in my decreptitude, are easier to deal with.

I don't always reheat it. I often just have it cold with maybe a salad. I have however, had some success crisping the skin under the grill/broiler.

It's pre-smoked. I always buy it in these 1kg packs and repack singly and freeze. Tea is often used to smoke duck. I'm not sure what is used in these duck breasts but fruit woods are certainly used for some preparations. Lychee wood, apple wood and camphor wood are the most common.

Smoked duck breast, matsutake and culantro.

But nothing like the burger as actually executed without food stylists and Photoshop!

Starter v Main, I would have thought. Very common.

I'm baffled. In my experience (I always have home rendered duck fat (100% fat) in my kitchen. It is near solid at room temperature here in the tropics). Certainly not sprayable.

The recipes for the dishes cooked in the series are now here. I think I'm about to binge watch the whole series again.

Chinese bacon is generally very good to excellent but nothing like typical American bacon, although that is also available, but a minority interest.

I'm not seeing the meat as green. Actually the bacon was probably the most real looking part. Sure, it isn't American bacon, but most of the world doesn't see American bacon as default, if they eat it all. Of course that doesn't excuse them from describing the whole mess as a Typical American Burger.

Yes, no lettuce despite it being listed twice in the contents given on their ad. There was about a third of a paper thin slice of tomato lurking in shame under the 'beef' patty. The whole thing was slathered with American 'cheese' glue though. Every time one of my Chinese friends and acquaintances tells me they don't like western food, I tell them they've never eaten it!

Why, oh why do I do these things? I had on my mind that 'Typical American Burger' I mentioned before... ... so I took one for the team and ordered one. Here is the reality. Dreadful. Inedible. Even my neighbour's dog looked at it suspiciously and ran away. It came with some of what they and I sensibly call chips, which weren't great but edible.

I doubt it very much. For twenty years?

Those are very common here in Chinaland, but more often described as dish removers and used to lift hot plates out of steamers.

I am ecstatic. Today I took delivery of 12 cans of my favourite Portuguese sardines after them being unavailable for months. I was down to my last three cans after careful self-denial. Now back to 15!

I'm sorry, but to my eyes the egg looks very much like an egg and isn't red or persimmon-like. I didn't even consider that could be what you were asking about. The only reddish thing I can see at the top is that piece of bacon.

As I said.

But is it descriped as "Typically American? I know. I'm European. I will argue though that is isn't cheese!