liuzhou

No. It is used on food. Remember, it is Chinese.

Every supermarket and market has them here, when in season. But then they are from China, originally. In Mandarin, they are 枇杷 (pí pa, pronounced like 'pea pah'). 'Loquat' is from the Cantonese luh kwat, literally ‘rush orange’. I like them, but they are fiddly.

Only one bites and sucks blood - the female. (I had a wife like that once) The female mosquito needs the blood for her babies!

Having been stuck in a similar (non-culinary) situation re failed batteries in the past, I now check carefully to see that any batteries are standard, replaceable and easily available types instead of custom jobs designed to tie you to that manufacturer. Sony is the worst offender that I know of. Nothing is theirs is standard. Of course, that cuts me out of buying some things I'd quite like but that's better than ending up with an expensive toy I can't use.

No.

Nope

It is culinary!

Any ideas⁈

Nice short tribute from VOA News here.

Sorry to tease you but here's something you probably aren't going to find - at least not in this form. What we have here are fresh Litsea seeds (Litsea cubeba (Lour.) Pers. ), (山胡椒 - shān hú jiāo, literally mountain pepper; or 木姜子 - mù jiāng zǐ, literally tree ginger seeds). They are more usually seen dried, but even more often they are used to make 山胡椒油 - shān hú jiāo yóu or 木姜子油 - mù jiāng zǐ yóu, litsea oil. The seeds grow on small trees in Guizhou and Hunan provinces, as well as in Taiwan. The oil is distinctly lemon scented - like lemongrass - with notes of ginger and a mild pepperiness. The harvest begins in May and lasts all summer. The oil is often used as a condiment. Fuchsia Dunlop notes in The Food of Sichuan that although not Sichuanese, people in the SE of the province like to use it in dips and on the cold dishes that cuisine is famous for. The fresh seeds can be added to summer hoptpots, but they are rare, even here. The oil is available in the west, but usually in those trendy 'wellness' places where the quacks recommend it is an essential oil. Grrr!

Picked these up in the local import store. An expensive impulse purchase. I only went in to price check something else before deciding whether the online deal I had seen was the better price I suspected it to be. I was, of course, irritated to see this English company, based in Devon, succumbing to the Americanisation. If they are British, they aren't 'chips'! Grrr! So here are the 'CRISPS'. They were covered in the promised sea salt and peppercorns giving them an odd appearance. The pepper was coarsely ground and tasted fresh - none of that dusty, stale pre-ground flavour that is so common. However, although the salting was on point, there was far too much pepper. Now, I love pepper, but this was ridiculous. I'm sure many people would have recoiled in horror. Won't be buying them again!

Here is a longer video showing more of his leaving the hospital which more clearly shows people's reactions. It is in Chinese and is preceded by a two minute interview with him, again in Chinese. Skip that if you want!

Here is a short news report (in English) from Changsha as Yuan Longping's body is transferred from the hospital to the undertakers. People came out to say goodbye and traffic stopped to let him pass. Have a look at some of the comments below. I can't remember or imagine anything like those being expressed about any western scientist. I was a baby when Einstein died and although Stephen Hawking was widely admired, it wasn't really for his research, but for his surviving so long. Neither Einstein's or Hawking's work had a profound influence on people's daily lives. Few even understood it. Subsistence farmers certainly knew what hugely increased rice yields meant to them. Please remember that, when Yuan developed his hybrids, 80% of China's population was rural and a large percentage of them were leading subsistence lives. Suddenly, they had excess to sell, thereby improving their living standards. Almost every Chinese person I know has posted some tribute on Chinese equivalents of Twitter or Facebook. Chinese friends now in the UK and the USA have done so on both Chinese and Western portals. Chinese television is broadcasting 2 to 3 hour tribute programs. I haven't know anything like this since Princess Diana died in France in 1997, although I missed most of that (I was internet-less in China at the time, but caught up later.)

Yeah well, when they are literally growing on the streets you pass through to get to the supermarket, it's kind of hard to attract top dollar!

I'm not expecting "The Devil's Dinner" to be so much a recipe book; more about the culture behind the things. But till it comes out, who knows?

Apple vinegar pickled peanuts with pickled chillies. 平果醋花生.

Yes, that is quite the cliché fest.

Yuan Longping's dream - in English.

I'm looking forward to this. A little information here.

This news was released at 11 am, China time, but proved to be premature. He had been taken to hospital. However, at 2 pm, it was confirmed that he had passed way.

Yuan Longping (袁隆平), the Chinese agronomist, known throughout China and beyond for being the first to develop modern rice hybrids died in Changsha, Hunan on May 22nd, 2021, aged 91. Here is the Wikipedia page on his achievements. Hybrid rice has since been grown in dozens of countries in Africa, America, and Asia—providing a robust food source in areas with a high risk of famine. For his contributions, Yuan is always called the "Father of Hybrid Rice" by the Chinese media. Wikipedia. He is very highly respected in China, as his work not only reduced famine, but helped raise the standard of living among China's rural population. This news is going viral on China's top social media sites as I write. The country is mourning a national hero.

That is essentially what I did.