liuzhou

I get these miniature pineapples from Thailand.They come peeled and eye-removed from the local fruit shop. 54 cents US a pineapple. Very juicy. The tray it's sitting in is 12 cm / 4¾" diameter".

A lot of people carry these 'travel chopsticks' to use in restaurants rather than the disposable or possibly, badly washed sticks supplied. The are in two parts to be screwed togather like a snooker cue and come in a carrying case. These are usually stainless steel, not my favourite, although I do have a pair.

That would be the death of them. They want you to stay in the store as long as possible hunting for what you want (and picking up stuff you don't).. Supermarket chains employ psychologists to trick you left, right, and centre. Expensive goods at eye level, cheap stuff at floor level. Go look for salt in your supermarket. Where is it 99% of the time? At floor level. They make almost nothing from it; they're not going to place it at eye level. Some supermarkets even control how quickly you push your cart through the aisles: slower in the luxury impulse buy section, faster in the boring staples. The vary the size of the floor tiles; we instinctively try to keep the clicks of the wheels even, speeding up or slowing down subconciously as we go. And that 's only the beginning.

Tonight's dinner. A local speciality, this was sold as 桂林啤酒鱼 (guì lín pí jiǔ yú), Guilin Beer Fish, but is probably better known as 阳朔啤酒鱼(yáng shuò pí jiǔ yú) Yangshuo Beer Fish, Yangshuo being the tourist trap in Guilin Prefecture., which lies to the north and east of Liuzhou Traditional Yangshuo beer fish is made with a freshly caught 1 to 1.5 kg carp from the local river, the River Li, perhaps caught by a cormorant – probably not. The fish is gutted, but not scaled. It is then fried whole in camellia oil until the scales form a hard crust, then the fish is braised with the local Liquan beer, ginger, red and green chilli peppers, garlic, onions, celery, tomatoes, soy, sugar and oyster sauce. Served with rice.

Aristology is a highly obscure word, seldom used. Derived from the Greek ἄριστο-ν breakfast, luncheon + -λογία discourse and meaning "the art or ‘science’ of dining". It enjoyed a brief, somewhat pretentious vogue in the 19th centurry, then all but disappeared. Gourmet is the older word in terms of first recorded written usage, but only by 15 years, a negligible time in word dating. There is no way of knowing which was in spoken use first. They would be considered contemporaneous by etymologosts. Also 'gourmet' referred to a person and not a science or art, so not synonymous. The more related term would be aristologist. The quasi-adjectival usage of gourmet didn't appear until the early 1900s, some 65 years after aristologist.

I've never come across this before in China. Rather than ordering whole dishes, this restaurant was offering selected half dishes in pairs allowing you to try different items. (Whole versions were also available). So I chose two half dishes. 1. 美味鲜虾 (měi wèi xiān xiā), delicious shrimp. Their description, but accurate. Large perfectly cooked shrimp. 2. 章鱼脚 (zhāng yú jiǎo), Octopus tentacles. Tender and plentiful. The two sauces were very similar (but not identical), both being heavy on the chilli oil, a good thing in my book. Came with rice. Very enjoyable. I'll order the full dishes in future.

I don't mind a drop of Glenfiddich although it's far from my favourite. More of a Macallan man, although I do love a Laphroaig, too. I even own a square metre of the distillery! Stocks of both have already been laid in. And the last of my cheese arrived today. All set, apart from mince pies which have just been dispatched from Shanghai a short time ago.

Yes, but that is usually in reference to city pigeons / rats. Wood pigeons and commercially farmed squab are very different. I have four in the freezer which will be used over the holiday. Very popular meat birds here, especially in Cantonese restaurants. Cantonese Roast Pigeon

自贡 (zì gòng) Zigong is a city in southern Sichuan It has been a major salt producing area for around 2,000 years and is well known as such throughout China. It is also known for having some of Sichuan's spiciest food. Dinner tonight was 自贡盐煎肉 (zì gòng yán jiān ròu), Zigong Salt Fried Pork. It is lean pork slices marinated with onion and fresh green chillies, then pan fried with dried red chilies, rice wine, fermented black beans, doubanjiang bean paste, and sesame seeds, then finished with red chilli oil. Seved with rice. ¥38.50 - $5.39 USD.

Nearly forgot. Having been born in Scotland, I don't recognise Christmas without these. In past years, I've bought two packs of the non-alcohholic version, but this year they are carrrying the Glenfiddich type for the first time. so I've ordered one of each. P.S. The Brillat Savarin mentioned above has arrived by plane from Shanghai and is now resting in my fridge.

I brought my 皮蛋瘦肉粥 (pí dàn shòu ròu zhōu), century egg and pork congee, home with with me, so I ordered some. This lot came with a small bag of 涪陵榨菜 (fú líng zhà cài), Fuling pickled mustard tuber. Fuling Zhacai

Christmas here is just a normal day, so I don't really celebrate it, but I do insist on a good dinner. So, the only preparations I'm making is ordering in a supply of cheese. In transit are these. Brillat-Savarin Manchego Crottin de Pays goat's milk cheese I also wanted some Beijing Blue ... but it's out of stock. Still hopeful... Cheddar I have.

After baffling the nurses with my food deliveries to the hospital with Vietnamese. Thai and Korean food, I decided to skip Italy until I got home, so last night was pizza night, chez château liuzhou. Black truffle, parma ham and arugula / rocket pizza, my favourite pizza from from my favourite pizza place.

I'd use Google (or similar) picture search.

Indeed, but like many places in the USA, it was named after immigrants' home towns and villages as the text quoted says. Dungeness in the UK will be amused to see itself described as a "city". As I said, it's a village, dating back to pre-Roman times (as is Washington). York (the OLD one) is a city. While both England and China have plenty of crabs, indeed they don't have "Dungeness crabs", nor did I ever claim so. Trickster? I never bought a crab in my life until I moved to London to start university. We just picked them up on our doorstep, as kids. Parts of my family in the UK still do.

Don't I know it!

Bit of an odd morning. I was being wheeled through the crowds (it's a busy hospital) to a treatment room when someone called my name. An ex-student who graduated with a good MA about ten years ago. Neither of us had time to stop. About 15 minutes later she reappeared bearing a large shopping bag of gifts from the hospital shop - a typical polite reaction to running into me. Chinese custom. Later, back in my cell, I found two large bao buns (stuffing as yet undetermined), two boiled eggs, two half litre containers of soy milk, two cobs of damnation (my students weren't so aware of my c@rn aversion as people here) and two bottles of purified drinking water. The kindest nurse of the day will get the corn and the runner-up the the soy milk. The rest I'll use.

An aside, but even as a crab lover, the concept of Dungeness crab scares me. The original village of Dungeness near London is most famous for its nuclear power stations, among England's most well known. The village is actually now a bizarrely beautiful tourist attraction and the area known for its presumably non-nuclear seafood. But the now decommissioned power plants (also open to visitors) remain best known. https://www.historyhit.com/locations/dungeness/

I'm no meat expert But the persillé of beef just means the marbelling of any cut. I've never known it to refer to a specific cut.

Dinner tonight was a Bánh Mì from my favourite Vietnamese restaurant which fortuitously is just across the road from the hospital's main entrance. Sorry, I'd eaten almost half of it before I remembered to take a photograph. 😎

I never pay attention to lists compiled from anonymous 'customers' (or reviews from same 'customers'.) Too many fakes, too many vested interests, too many scores to settle, too many trolls, too many clueless diners, etc. "The curry was spicy! I don't like spicy food!" "The ice cream was COLD!" "The soup was too wet and the spaghetti was too long."

A few days ago, I mentioned I had a rice noodle dish with pork meat and offal from the hospital canteen for lunch but had no picture. Today, I had it again. As supplied, it was a bit bland but I had cunningly secreted a leftover little pot of hot sauce from an outside delivery dinner a couple of evenings ago. That woke my rice noodles up nicely.

Pork tenderloin (里肌肉 - lǐ jī ròu) is my go-to pork cut for almost everything. Stir fried dishes, as steaks, sino-schnitzels, Greek style kebabs, my favourite coriander pork dish and more. The only other cut I regularly use is pork belly, 五花肉 （wǔ huā ròu) 'fiver flower pork' , but that's a different kettle of pig.

I agree that unvarnished chopsticks are easier to grasp (and hold the food better) but in my experience shorter sticks are not an advantage. Less leverage.

South Asia and parts of S.E Asia do use coconut cream, but not in most of China. They use neither.