liuzhou

Both.

I'm guessing your uncle wasn't Chinese, but that is a very Chinese sentiment. All the serving dishes and bowls being empty would reduce the host to total loss of face. The dark side of that is the huge amount of food waste I see here, although, to be fair there is a big doggy bag culture in restaurants and at home. Recently with more city dwelling people having fridges, uneaten lunch will turn up at dinner etc. Out in the countryside, it is normal to cook slightly too much, especially when entertaining.The lack of refrigeration here in the countryside tropics rules out recycling, but the pigs have smiles on their faces (which we eat in winter).

...and why not?

I don't know if any of these are specifically centipedes, but bug eating is a not uncommon street food practice round here and the bugs are indeed skewered then either fried or grilled.

Cuttlefish ink pasta with clams, garlic, ginger, chilli, scallions, Shaoxing wine..

"God made food, the devil the cooks. Devilled crab." James Joyce - Ulysses

Chicken, shiitake, asparagus, green onions, Shaoxing wine, garlic, ginger, chillies, Zhenjiang vinegar, salt, rice.

三鲜馄饨 (sān xiān hún tún) Three delicacy wontons. Home made but frozen. They cook from frozen in three minutes. Quick breakfast. With yellow Sriracha sauce. Bought in Sriracha. The three delicacies are shrimp, pork and shiitake. Happy mouth.

Is there another kind?

Another working lunch at home. Working on a translation with an urgent deadline. Like yesterday! Local mozzarella, tomatoes and balcony basil on halved baquettes. Inslata caprese open sandwiches, if you like! Sea salt and pepper.

Been re-stocking the vinegar shelf. L-R White rice vinegar, white wine vinegar, Shanxi (6-year) aged vinegar, Zhenjiang vinegar, Zhejiang red vinegar, red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar di Modena, cider vinegar, apple vinegar.

Sole "breaded"with black oatmeal and pan fried. Skinny chips. Tomato. Lemon.

Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine. James Joyce, Ulysses

By the ever popular Anon.

I'd imagine that shipping that beast across the Atlantic would be rather expensive, especially as you don't know how long you will stay. Is it really practical from that point of view?

窝窝头 wō wō tóu buns with shrimp. Wild caught shrimp fried in butter and olive oil with garlic, chilli and scallions.

I'll start, if I may: “The belly is an ungrateful wretch, it never remembers past favors, it always wants more tomorrow.” ―from ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH (1962) by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

@Dejah That borscht looks wonderful! Pity I can't get beets here.

Just treat it like any other salad green. I de-stem it for salads but you don't really need to. I use the stems in soups and stocks etc.

Spicy pork with wine, with freshly ground coriander seeds, cumin seeds and Sichuan peppercorns; lemon juice, garlic and chilli. Tomato and basil salad with a lemon vinaigrette; Raw baby bok choy; Couscous.

I'm sorry if this puts you off your food, but full disclosure is required. The same local supermarket, apart from selling frozen triangles, also makes "pizzas" in their in-store bakery. Two types. Sold by the quarter. On the left we have a red bell pepper and corn effort and, on the right, a pork floss (肉松 - ròu sōng ) pizza tragedy. There is also corn buried under the floss. There may be other ingredients, but if you think I'm going to taste it to find out, you are deluded! I'm not even going to speculate what the "cheese" may be. The supermarket doesn't carry cheese. And the base is probably soggy sponge cake. Masochists may click on the image to enlarge.

Black vinegar braised chicken legs with garlic, ginger, chilli, Sichuan peppercorns, Shaoxing wine, Chinese chives, soy sauce and 6-year-aged Zhenjiang vinegar (镇江醋 - zhèn jiāng cù). Flash fried baby bok choy (小白菜 - xiǎo bái cài). Rice.

Thai red curried duck. Rice. Asparagus. I boned and skinned a couple of duck legs for the meat. The bones are now making stock and the fat and skin will be rendered tomorrow for future use.

It's a pity it's not a papaya, but it definitely isn't. Papayas are so much better and can be eaten both ripe and unripe. The famous Thai (actually it came from Laos) papaya salad is made from the unripe fruit. Here are unripe papayas on a tree just outside my home. I'd steal one, but they are inside a police station's grounds. When ripe, they do turn yellow, but do not have those white stripes in your photograph. The Korean melon or chamoe which you have, while inexplicably popular in er, of all places, Korea, is one of the least interesting melons I've come across. We get them here, too. In fact, it was China which introduced them to Korea, largely because it seemed a good idea to dump the garbage on someone else. Allegedly.

Here is a link to a recipe.