liuzhou

This isn't meant to be a joke, but given my recent purchases, I found it amusing. The ‘World’s-First’ Cheese Board Bath Rack Full story here. All I need is that and a bathtub! They don't seems to do a model for the shower!

Thanks. Yes, still one handed, but I can now use the broken one as a dead weight to steady things.

Mackerel steaks pan-fried with mirin and litsea oil to finish. Triple cooked chips. There was a salad to the side.

I don't know if this is a book or a booklet; Ive only seen the cover and that it's from 1962. But I know I want a copy! Avaiable in limited quantites from Omnivore Books, San Francisco.

Oyster Shuckers in Liuzhou Seafood Market This link leads to a Chinese poem by 梅尧臣 (méi yáo chén) titled ' 食蚝 (shí háo)', 'Eating Oysters'. It has been translated and annotated by a local friend who is a professional translator, currently visiting France.

It is labelled 米酒 - rice wine, yes, but I don't know the brand, sorry.

Liver and onions à la chinoise.

...and the Irish Cheddar arrived this morning.

French Chavroux goat's milk cheese with Scottish oatcakes.

Given that 'glug' has been in use since the 14th century, while 'crappy' is only 19th century, I think that battle is lost. I agree there is a lot of terrible food writing about. It's called the internet.

Yet even websites that should know better repeat the myth. It isn't just YouTube. The Woks of Life, The Spruce Eats etc.

Online shopping deliveries today. I've been planning to order this stuff for a while, but the weather has been too hot for months. It takes two to three days for deliveries to come from Shanghai and I didn't want fondue to arrive! This week it has cooled down a lot, so I took the tumble. From the top at 12 noon then going clockwise is goat's milk Chevroux from France; real Parmigiano-Reggiano from Italy; Camembert from France; More Chevroux (I only ordered and paid for one, but two arrived. Do you hear me complaining?); and finally some Manchego from Spain (real Manchego from sheep's milk). There is some Irish cheddar on the way, too. Maybe that will arrrive tomorrow.

I never post to promote arguments, but I'm sure some of the egotistical half-wits on YouTube would put up a fight.

That's how I read it, too.

23. The Sesame Oil Surprise This was brought to my attention by a Chinese friend who had been looking at YouTube videos featuring Chinese recipes. She noticed that many, many recipes marinated their proteins in the usual soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine and the not at all usual, very surprising sesame oil. What further baffled her was that some (a larger than expected minority) of these recipes were from people who claimed to be of Chinese or other Asian ethnicities. I reminded her that many ethnically Chinese people living in the diaspora have never actually been to China and can be very westernised and in any case being of a certain ethnicity does not make you an expert on its cuisine or even cooking it. I know many Chinese people here in China who can’t boil an egg or make rice. My friend is self-admittedly a basic level cook, but a star basketball player. Her surprise came from her knowing that Chinese sesame oil is valued for its flavour and aroma, both of which are highly volatile and disappear when heated. So, in Chinese cuisine, it is only applied as a condiment when the dish is being served and then off the heat, or perhaps occasionally unheated in a dipping sauce. It couldn't possible survive the way these recipes treat it. They could have saved time and achieved the same results by just pouring the oil down the toilet and missing out the middle man. I defy anyone to marinate two samples of marinaded meat, one with and one without sesame oil, then tell me blindfolded which is which after it is cooked. And for the antipodean clown who bought a gallon jar of sesame oil, I hope you have a huge fridge because it rapidly goes rancid and loses flavour if stored unrefrigerated after opening. My bottte is 100ml, the standard size here.

Sardines on toasted rye*. International breakfast: Bread from Russia, butter from New Zealand, sardines from Portugal, salt and pepper from China. * Bread slightly over toasted. New toaster settings not quite worked out yet!

I mentioned back here in the potato chip flavors topic, the disgusting Luosifen chips that Lay's had launched in China. Today a friend in Shanghai contacted me to warn me that Pretz, the Japanese snacks, have been launched in Shanghai in a luosifen flavor! It's the end of civilisation. My friend tried one and described it as tasting like "like stinky mud".

Rustled me up some 牛肉炒面 (niú ròu chǎo miàn) - beef fried noodles. Beef marinated in Shaoxing wine with garlic, ginger, chilli and potato starch. Stir fried with fresh hand pulled noodles, hothouse chives and scallions with a splash of soy sauce.

But it is low sodium!

I don't mind cherry tomato skins per se. I just don't want them in sauces. If I'm eating them raw or fried with breakfast, as I often do, I'm happy with the skins.

Just for the record, in sauces or similar, I always peel the tomatoes. Even cherry tomatoes.

I'd love to say that I baked this, but it wouldn't be true. My oven died and I'm having work done on the kitchen so I haven't replaced it yet. So, I bought it on-line. It is rye bread made to a Russian recipe in Heilongjiang, China's northermost province, bordering Eastern Siberia. Pretty good stopgap.

2,700-year-old blue cheese and beer.

Butter-loaded scrambled eggs x2, buttered toasted muffins, sausages.

By the 1920s, commercially distributed frozen food had been around for about 60 years, initially in Australia. Perhaps more so in the UK than the USA. Meat was exported from Australia to the UK in 1868. Frozen chickens were imported by the UK from Russia starting in 1885. It wasn't until Birdeye developed flash freezing in 1929, that it really took off en masse. Of course, frozen food had been around since neolithic times.