liuzhou

Love sick? Heart broken? Worry ye not. Here is a 17th century recipe to set you straight. https://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/2022/06/28/heartsease-cordial-adapting-early-modern-recipe-pansies/

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Er, I don't know about where you are, but in my hometown in Scotland, pretty much all fish is hung to be smoked. Salmon, cod, herring, haddock, etc

Japan has had a huge influence on Taiwan's cuisine. The Japanese did occupy it for 50 years, ending in 1945. I wouldn't use Lee Kum Kee. Apart from that company being low quailty, dark soy sauce in stir fried greens is not a great idea. Dark soy is only really used for colour; not flavour. I'd go with the Kikkoman until you can replenish your Pearl River supply.

I've never tried to climb the tree - I can hardly climb the stairs to my apartment, at my age! Harvesting is mainly done by people up ladders, although I'm sure the birds and other critters get a few. | There are images of the harvest upthread here.

The only thing I learned in grad school was never to eat hot dogs!

Indeed. Any restaurant serving chips* in the UK that weren't hot wouldn't last a week. * The correct name. They arent French!

You have to get the tones right! 🤣

That is roughly what I said but recall my 'ouch' began with an 'f'!

... check that the rice cooker is up to temperature by sticking my hand over the steam release valve thing. It was 100 ℃

from Encyclopedia for the Home by Cincinnati Times Star 1890s

@Katie Meadowexactly

I never thought that anyone was trying to confound me. I remember the great swede / turnip debate in the UK, then we Scots threw 'neeps' into the argument just to screw with people's minds!

A no-reason photograph. My local lychee tree, today.

My problem with 'bok choy' or 'bok choi', however you spell it, is that it's almost meaningless in Chinese. My problem; not yours. Bok Choy is Cantonese, a language spoken by 4.5% of Chinese people. The majority language is what you probably know as Mandarin Chinese, another unknown term in China. In Mandarin, it is 白菜 (bái cài) which literally means 'white vegetable', but more pragmatically just means 'brassica'. It covers literally scores of vegetables. So when you tell me something is bok choy, I have no idea what you are talking about. But one thing I do know. What most Americans and British etc call 'baby bok choy' is never called that in China! As I already said, and before the wicked witch berates me again, I repeat - call it what you will, but please try to understand my confusion.

In the highly unlikely event that you ever enter my kitchen and put my tomatoes in the fridge, you better be in full body armour and be backed up by a platoon of bodyguards.

OK. Update. Here is a picture hopefully showing the cup nature of this veg. You don't, I think, ever get that with Shanghai Greens. And here it is cooked. It would be good to stuff, I guess! Otherwise, it just tastes like a minerally cabbage.

Tonight, unusally, I made myself a starter and a two plate main. Starter: Smoked sturgeon with litsea oil. This has a citrus flavour similar (but different) to lemon. I love smoked sturgeon. Main: Cast iron pan fried pork steak with flower shiitake, toaster oven roast potatoes and, on the side plate, 鹤斗白 (hè dǒu bái) simply stir fried with a smidgeon of garlic. Dessert: A six pack of beer! (OK! Two six-packs!)

That is one of the reasons I seldom buy veg in supermarkets. I live alone and don't need 18 tomatoes, thank you! Instead, I use the local wet market where I can buy one tomato if need be (I never have!) or just enough of what I need. They all know me and happily oblige. I've been going there 25 years. The supermarket staff changes every day and they don't know me from Adam and don't care, either. (Not blaming them as people!)

The best way to do asparagus, in my humble.

The main trouble with term 'bok choy' is that, in Chinese, it simply means 'cabbage' which covers hundreds of different varieties. It's a family, not a type.

No. I know what that is. Different.

I seem to have started a civil war in China over this one. One friend called it 'Shanghai baby bok choy'. So I asked my Shanghainese friend what she called it and she said "Never seen that in my life!"

Yeah. I know it gets called that, but it isn't the name used in China. And curly 'baby bok choy' is not the same as regular 'baby bok choy', is it? Only the former has that cup-shaped interior.

When I first moved to China (1996), virtually no western food was available. Butter, olive oil, sardines, anchovies, bread, onions, pasta, capers, coffee and certainly, cheese were all distant dreams. But slowly it changed. I remember the first time I found olive oil. The first time I took a selfie (or is that shelfie, now) was of me holding a bottle of EVOO I had found! I sent the pic to my family in celebration! I'm still not the selfie type, though. Now EVOO is in every supermarket. As is pasta. We found one shop in town which carried random imports. Butter, liver pâté, anchovies etc. We called it the butter shop. And one day, we even found a bakery making really good French bread. Today, there is very little I can't get. China adopted on-line shopping very early on. In fact, China's equivalent of Black Friday is a bigger earner by far! And while most of the food is, naturally, Chinese there are also a lot of sellers of imported goods. Still can't get haggis, though!