insomniac

agree totally with jackal10. le Manoir offers a 3 year apprenticeship after a 2 day trial, they are hiring at the moment I believe due to enforcement of EU regs re hours worked by the kitchen being finally taken seriously.............or so the scuttlebut has it

I made ginger beer several times years ago in NZ....can't quite remember what the recipe was but I do remember using ginger, brown (or similar) sugar and water and feeding it every day with more ginger and sugar til it fermented, then using lemons??? too long ago but did have one ginger beer explosive event involving more than one bottle on a hot day..... worth it, bloody good tipple...

which egulleter lives in Surinam??

aha, Rona, at first reading I thought it was moon squirrel but now I'm wondering Rocky and Bullwinkle.......?? so is it moosnsqrl?

prik nam pla (esp. when flying... improves airline food to almost edible , not bad in airborne vodka and tomato ) and tiny sachets of vegemite (can take the girl out of Oz but....)

curry icecream...Fiji

when my son was about 3 he would come home from his friend's place (in Hong Kong) and ask me for 'one woolies'...which took me a while to transmogrify into 'wah mui' (salted preserved plums) ps. they do get a bit wooly if you put them in your pocket

I know Porn as a name in Thai. I'm sure it has a meaning, too, but I don't know what it is. I think I might have a cousin called Porn... ← FWIW the name Porn means blessing in Thai

Please Santa bring me a thermomix ( no-one else will )

Fawlty Towers, Polly speaking to Basil, is it the duck episode? where Basil beats his broken down car with a branch?? my fav.

When I was living in a very remote region of New Guinea near the West Irian border supplies were dropped every month (from a helicopter ). It took me about 4 months to be able to eat the little black beetles that inhabited the rice without wanting to barf...I eventually rationalised that they must be there anyway in fresher rice, we just can't see them. On the other topic, I ordered some AAA grade Thai jasmine rice a few months ago online (forgotten the name but I've kept the bag however I'm a few thousand miles away from it at the mom.)and it was just so delicious and superior to any rice I had eaten before and the smell of it cooking was so wonderful that I just sat over the rice cooker eating it the minute it was ready, beating off my Filipino foster son with my free hand (huge bag didn't last long. not good for figure )

my son and I at l'Arpege...I would say how much but my husb. occasionally browses and he would garotte me........

Well, my son wanted to be a chef since he was very young. He was so determined that he left school at 16 after GCSE's (U.K. mid secondary school certificate), found himself a stage at a resto run by a 2* mich. chef one and a half hours away by bus, was so enthusiastic that he was taken on, found a flat in the city and worked there very successfully until powers that be decided he was too young to work such long hours. He was shattered. His chef recommended him to another 2* resto, he went for a trial, started a week later on a 3 year apprenticeship, ....I bit my lip and smiled when I met up with him, 3 stone lighter, white as a ghost, working 18 hour days. ...getting the piss taken out of him daily for having gone to a famous private school etc etc ......nearly 2 yrs later he is happy,calm, settled, mature beyond his years (19)and running one of the sections....if you want something badly enough you'll do it.

I wish you everlasting blue skies ah Leung, will mightily miss your pictorials, especially with your HK style crockery to make me homesick....

we used to add sliced ginger, let it sit overnight and eat it after dinner to pretend it was dessert

Is it made by Kraft? Way, way back when, what is now called Cracker Barrel Aged Reserve Cheddar cheese (formerly New York Aged Reserve) -- the variety in the black wrapper -- was called Coon Brand Cheddar cheese. To ward off complaints, there was a raccoon on the package. My dad used to buy it from time to time. ← yep, I had a peek at the Aussie Kraft site and Coon cheese was introduced in 1957 (a fairly innocent time in the world of Oz advertising ....and everything else )

Have to agree with China Club for yum cha on the weekend...good luck with the reservation

Oz has coon cheese. HK had Darkie toothpaste, changed several years ago to Darlie, (surprising as HK is not the epitome of racial or cultural sensitivity) same black and white minstrel face on the pack and the chinese script still says Black Man.............hmmm ... or how about the electrolytic drink Pocari sweat?? or Smack Ramen?....spotted dick?....the Simpson's Lard Lad donuts ooh, forgot my HK supermarket favs, chicken tights and egg trats (leading to my husb. addressing me as the old trat )

An oldie but a goodie for peking duck and other Pekinese food etc is Spring Deer 42 Mody Road ( up the stairs). my dim sum favs are on the island...I'm sure someone will step in with TST recommendations. for egg tarts I personally prefer the Portuguese ones in Macau, there's a bakery in the village of Coloane that makes sublime tarts, Lord Stows...........also like Litoral near A Ma temple and the famous Fernando at Hac Sa beach for dinner, the latter is a sort of sand between the toes experience, can bus it or chicken out and take a taxi. (Haven't been to Macau for 2 yrs, apparently the Vegas casinos have changed its face, no more spitting on the carpet and hookers in shredded stockings on the prowl)

Probably not what you are looking for but my son and colleagues refers to anyone who has been reamed out by chef as being raped......I had a taste of what he meant when he must have left his phone in his pocket. It autodialled me and I answered to hear the apocryphal phrase...'Oi you fat welsh c**t etc etc, hahahaha, son horrified but also amused that I heard it (not him, he isn't Welsh)

I love them with the legs left on, great crunch

I don't remember much ketchup being used in our food when I lived in the Phil. (79-80). I think our maids used to eat rice with soy sauce and oil on it, but no ketchup. I do remember once visiting some Filipinos, and being served spaghetti sauce that had been made with *corned beef*! The canned stuff! It was pretty gross, but because we were guests, I had to finish it. Yuck! ← well, our Filipina housekeeper and her son who is our foster son in the U.K. HATE ketchup but adore canned corned beef and spam and Mitchell eats it makanan if no-one is around (including my husb.) I can't convince him that ketchup is the favoured beverage of Aussies, ergo delicious......but as an 11 y.o. he is a pretty mean cook

what a dazzling array of food...I'm actually glad I don't live in Malaysia Yunnermeier as I think I lost my metabolism about 20 years ago ps. I love green mangoes dipped in salt, addictive but overindulgence = mouth ulcers

**JEALOUS** (I'm through HK next week, first stop Malaysian stall off Lan Kwai Fong)

Fukuda's take on Arcimboldo's Vertumnus? altho Vertumnus is fruit, veg etc, not just cabbage?? not sure.....