liuzhou

I didn't actually use the dipping sauce, but from previous visits to that restaurant, I think it's white rice vinegar and sesame oil with chopped Chinese chives and garlic.

Another day; another dinner. This time dinner with four friends in a nearby restaurant specialising in local food. Snow Peas, Wood Ear Fungus and Baby Lotus Roots Mixed Cured Pork and Chinese Sausage White Cut Chicken Tofu Rice Paddy Fish with Vegetables Dry Fried Beans with Pork Spicy Pork Ribs Pig Offal Soup with Goji Vegetable Bun Cups with Minced Pork and Vegetables Bun Cup with Minced Pork and Vegetables

From the late, great Dave Allen.

I seem to have perfected the art of visually unappealing dishes over the last couple of days. Whatever you do, don't look at my latest offering on the Breakfast topic. I blame distracting circumstances. And a 5ºC kitchen when it warms up. Tropical winter. That said, please believe me, they tasted fine. Would I lie to you? So, tonight, something I'm sure I've posted before. A favourite in Castle Liuzhou. Steak and kidney without the pie. Rough mashed potatoes. None of your puréed baby food nonsense! Cabbage was on the side but couldn't fit on the plate and, anyway, I find green clashes horribly with my delicately composed tableau.

Somewhat beige but delicious just the same. Fried duck egg and foie gras on toast. Double duck. Actually, I wanted to poach the egg, but my eggs weren't fresh enough.

It's the light and the bottle. Not the water. The water is crystal clear. Like Perrier water isn't green!

I should add that no one in China drinks tap water. It isn't safe. In the past people boiled water, but today it is nearly all from bottles. Most home, offices etc have these water dispensers. This one, in my home, both heats and cools the water. Some only do the former. Chinese people often drink plain hot water and many consider drinking chilled water to be fatal! I make a phone call when I need a new bottle and the delivery guy usually turns up within the hour - 7 days a week. Around $3 USD for 20 litres. This is non-carbonated, non-sparkling purified water, not mineral water. I've never seen a Chinese sparkling water, although imported varieties such as Evian or San Pellegrino are available at astronomical prices.

Finally, for now, this gem. Ten years ago, I flew from Hong Kong to London for a short visit and was handed this bottle of water when I boarded at Hong Kong airport. Gleneagles is not far from my birthplace, so I was initially quite amused. But then I thought about it. This water had already been flown across the half the planet and was about to fly back again. To compound the air miles, I never actually remembered to drink it and ended up carrying it back to Hong Kong, then on another flight to my home on the Chinese mainland. Three intercontinental trips. I still have it untouched ten years later. I am planning a trip back again relatively soon and will take it with me. It will probably be the best travelled bottle of water ever!

2. Tibetan Water Various brands of Tibetan water have hit the market recently purporting to be purer than pure. This one is from Eastern Tibet. Concerns have been expressed by scientists as to the environmental damage extracting this water is causing. Also, you can bet your life, none of the revenue is likely to benefit the Tibetan residents. Again, there is little, if any, evidence of any significant health benefits. Except to the companies' bottom line. Yes, they charge premium prices. 3 - 10 times the normal price.

There are, as I'm sure people know, many concerns about the environmental impact of bottled water. Billions of plastic bottles are sold around the world every day and only a tiny proportion are recycled. Here are a some of the more ridiculous examples I've come across. 1) Bama Water (巴马丽琅 bā mǎ lì láng) Bama is a tiny village in the west of Guangxi which has a notably high number of centenarians - a well known longevity cluster. The inhabitants are mainly subsistence farmers and lead a very simple life and follow a simple diet with very little meat, salt or sugar. Organically grown corn, rice, millet, sweet potato, and soy bean are their main foods. They also eat pumpkin seedlings, sweet potato leaves, pak choi, mushroom, and bamboo shoots. The main cooking oil, used sparsely, is colza oil (a relative of rapeseed or canola oil). In recent years, the government has decided to cash in on the reputation of Bama as a "healthy place", building hotels and encouraging tourism. They have even gone so far as to suggest making the place a "Longevity Theme Park". Scores have people have come running thinking that it will increase their longevity to hang out there for a weekend or longer. They are totally ignoring the fact that most scientists attribute the longevity mainly to genetic factors. An alternative theory for the long life comes from one of the inhabitants, 104-year-old Xiao Yuanying. She puts her age down to the two ‘cups’ of rice wine she drinks every day. Of course, it isn’t your average supermarket ‘baijiu’, but home made ‘snake wine’ – bottles of rice wine in which a couple of snakes are suspended. (Being long, things like snakes and noodles are associated with longevity in China). Not content with their alcohol consumption, the locals are also partial to a bit of cannabis. Not to smoke. They use the oil, euphemistically referred to as ‘hemp oil’ in most English reports, but openly labelled on the local brand. This is used in dips and in a soup eaten twice a day. (At least that’s what they tell nosy researchers.) One thing for sure: drinking this water ain't going to make you life to 112. (In addition we've been hit by Bama eggs and Bama sesame oil. Naturally at double to triple the normal prices.) (Parts of this post have been copied from my blog here, which has more details about Bama.)

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat. Just started yesterday, but fascinating already.

Nor in the OED or any other dictionary. I'm going with it being a typo for "toothless"!

Fish and chips. Bought then gutted, de-scaled and filleted a red drum. Beer batter with chilli powder. Triple cooked chips. Just what the doctor didn't order. This is half of my repast. Went back for the second fillet and more chips.

????

...spend 20 minutes attempting, unsuccessfully, to Photoshop away a stray dot of black pepper which was ruining my otherwise immaculate picture of a perfect dinner, only to find that it was actually a speck of dust on my computer monitor.

The twist in the tale of the Nutella riots? Illegal Nutella! Whatever next?

Another found on Twitter Just my luck, 250 million year old salt and it expires next year.

After exhaustive research this morning (one brief phone call), I am informed that traditionally the central pot was indeed used as a heating element using solid fuel. However, today the hot pots are normally used on portable gas burners or induction cookers, rendering the central pot redundant. Today, the central pot is most often used to hold dry, uncooked ingredients to be cooked in the outer ring as and when required, or to hold cooked food so as to keep it warm without overcooking in the broth.

It's not actually a wok. It's a northern Chinese/Mongolian hotpot chafing dish. A soup is cooked elsewhere then added to the outer ring. Various ingredients (lamb/mutton and vegetables) are added by the diners, who essentially cook dinner themselves in the soup - fondue style. Very popular in winter. In fact, I hate winter food in China. It's the same every day. Here in the south we don't have the dishes with the central funnel/pot. The central pots seem to have various uses. I'm not sure which is most traditional. (Your chip and dip analogy may not be so far off. I confess I had to Google 'chip and dip'.) I will consult wiser people than me in the morning. You caught me at bedtime - I'll add more tomorrow, unless someone chips or dips in first.

Soup noodles. Fresh ramen noodles (拉面 lā miàn) in a pork bone broth with pork, mushrooms, spinach, green onion, chilli, garlic and ginger. Finished with some chilli oil, Sichuan peppercorn oil and white pepper. Hot and spicy for a cold day.

Pistachios in my new dispenser/disposer. With a nod to @Kerry Beal over here.

Indeed. I remember that two or three years ago there was great social unrest and near riots in India when the onion harvest failed.

Je ne sais pas. Peut-être qu'ils étaient trop ivres après le vin pour écrire cet avis.

This wasn't meant to be funny. It's a genuine health notice from France, 1954. For the non-Francophones, it says I'll do my best.

Tonight a meal I've made, and probably posted, many times before. But with a very slight difference. Pork with salt fermented black beans (豆豉 dòu chǐ), garlic, ginger, chilli, Sichuan peppercorns, Shaoxing wine, and soy sauce. With spinach. Unusually, and non-traditionally, I wilted the spinach in with the pork. The reason for this is highly scientific. A full explanation is beyond the scope of this post, but can be abbreviated to "pure laziness". P.S. The gold thing top left is a traditional Chinese compass used in 风水 fēng shuǐ and nothing at all to do with my dinner or my laziness, other than I was too lazy to move it out of shot. By the way, such compasses point to the south rather than north. Well they point both ways really, but the southern direction is the one highlighted. Hey, they invented compasses, so they can point any darn way they please.