nakji

I remember this; I paid 700 yen one week to get 250g of Danish butter because it's just something I couldn't do without. I'll eat less of it, but I won't switch to margarine - I just can't stand the taste. In China I buy imported butter. The cheapest is Westgold from New Zealand, at about 25 RMB or ~$3.60 USD for 250g. When I'm feeling flush, I buy Lurpak or President, at ~5.20 USD for 200g - I much prefer the taste of European butter. I assume that Australian and New Zealand dairy herds have significantly different diets, which affects the taste of the butter. Or the product is shipped poorly. Either way, I find the European butters nicer.

I really, really want to try the apple fritters - and the ice cream for that matter, but I don't have an ice cream maker, so that's probably out. Tell me more about the scallops.

Arctic char is a beautiful fish. My grandmother in Labrador has a regular supply, and always brings us one, wild caught and frozen, whenever she comes to visit. I like it best grilled, stuffed with sliced onions, wrapped up in foil.

A tablespoon of fresh ginger, sauteed in a neutral oil, to which you add a can of tomatoes and an equal measure of your favourite stock, simmer for about ten minutes, and whizz in the blender - it's a great, quick soup, especially to dress up the side of a cheese sandwich. Tomato soup and rilled cheese sandwiches has got to be my favourite rainy-day combination from when I was a kid, and I find the ginger makes it even more warming.

Gak! Hibernophobic? Is it a really a slur - considering it's the smallest amount of liquor you can buy in a go?

I have never, ever known what a "fifth" of vodka, gin, etc. meant. I've always assumed it's an imperial liquid measurement, although I've never bothered to look it up. It sounds really dramatic, though, as in - "I went home last night, drank a fifth of gin, and fell asleep in the bathtub." Or similar. And how about "mickeys" of liquor? We used to call those small 300 ml bottles of vodka "mickeys" when I was in university. As in, "Slip a mickey of Smirnoff in your pocket and let's walk down to the Lower Deck." Good times.

Oh, Ajisen ramen has a semi-instant product that I love. Fresh noodles, and two pouches of soup goo; cooked up with some takeaway char siu and blanched bok choi on the top - about at close as I'm getting to Japan in China. Is it available in other countries? It's really the most authentic "ramen" product I've ever tasted.

Yes, and it was drunk in a beautifully restored heritage building overlooking one of Souzhou's many canals in the historic district. High points on the atmosphere scale as well. We had a tall thermos of hot water at our table for further infusions at our convenience, and this tea was mild and smooth - not a hint of astringency. A person could get used to drinking tea like this every day!

I tried white tea for the first time in 2009 - here's a picture of a cup I had in a local teahouse. Regrettably, I didn't record the name of the tea, other than to note it was a white tea. When work becomes less desperate, I hope to go back to this particular place for more discoveries, as they have an extensive tea menu - about three page's worth, IIRC.

I haven't had any Yunnan teas...that sounds like a promising area to try. There's a coffee shop on my street that specializes in Yunnan coffees that are all the rage in Shanghai now, but I haven't seen anything about Yunnan teas. Of course, that's because I'm not reading anything in Chinese! I'd be interested in learning more about teas from this region.

Actually, I just made that theory up out of thin air. But it seems to me if you tried the same thing - reducing a can of plain tomatoes down and tossing pasta in it - without the oil, the tomatoes wouldn't achieve the right consistency. Would they?

Niiiiceeee. I made beosot-kalguksu shabu-shabu the other night, which is one of my husband's favourite dishes. Are those two other kimchis on the side?

I use Marcella Hazan's recipe for tomato sauce, which, as noted previously, produces a nicely thick sauce. The key to her recipe, I think is the 1/4 cup or so of olive oil she calls for. It seems to help bind the pasta to the tomato sauce. I've never needed to add paste to the finished sauce, it's always perfect. I use plain old De Cecco pasta, and finish the pasta for a minute tossed in the sauce in the saucepan over the flame. The pasta absorbs the sauce a bit. I also use a decent quality canned tomato - some of the no-name brands are just too watery. I don't use San Marzano or anything, Italian brands in general seem to do fine.

It's doing that horrible it's snow!/it's rain!/No, it's snow again! thing in my neighborhood. Not cool, since we don't have central heating. I'm making a big pot of chili, I think, to deal with this, and some rice with millet on the side. Maybe some brownies, to. It's a good day to run the oven. What is it about eating chili in the cold? It's just the perfect food for warming up.

Pretty! That's a rather uncommon panchan to get at restaurants, too, isn't it? At least it was when I lived in Korea. What did you eat it with?

Last year I broke my elbow and was in a cast for a month. Drove me crazy, mainly because while my husband cooked, I had to stay in the kitchen and talk him through every step. Cooking took twice as long, but we got there in the end - without killing each other, miracle of miracles. One dish I was able to make one-handed was Marcella Hazan's pasta with tomato sauce. The only help I needed was getting the can open, which, mercifully, my husband was able to do without direction. It makes for a quick weeknight dinner.

There's an interesting article in today's New York Times about this company. They claim to use superior methods and varieties of tea to competitors such as Twinings. Have you tried their teas? I've seen it in the shops, but I don't tend to buy tea bags, so I've never purchased their product.

I'm going to screw up the nerve to go to the live animal market, pick out a chicken, and have it butchered fresh. Then I'm going to see how many dishes I can stretch that chicken over. The quality of supermarket chicken in China is appalling.

That seems like an excellent idea! I'm going to steal it, if you don't mind. In my social set, no one has a "wine collection", so when wine is brought to a party, it's always assumed it's meant to be drunk that evening.

I think I'd rather try yours! The duck in the book is cut up lengthwise, isn't it? I don't know why, but it looks strange to my eye. The apple fritters are gorgeous, too. Fritters seem like a fairly straightforward thing - are they Keller'ed up in any way? Apples pureed into the batter or some such? I'm going to Malaysia next month, and I've already had a friend buy a copy to hold on to for me. Amazon isn't shipping until February, so I figure I'll get it faster through that route anyway. I can't wait to get my hands on it.

I got this book for Christmas and am just reading through it now. The thing that have particularly struck me is the "imitation food" rule being struck down - I had no idea about the labeling laws in the past.

Yes, I used to use a pressure cooker to make rice when I lived in Korea - it turned out a really nice bowl of rice, especially when I made rice blends with barley or red rice. Although, it did tend to terrorize my non-Korean friends when I'd haul it out.

Nice! What kind of beef did you use?

How about spinach with goma-ae (sesame dressing)? It's a classic Japanese dish - or you could also do the same kind of sauce on green beans, or whatever else looks good at the supermarket. Here's the linkto Torakris's eGCI lesson on making it - scroll to the middle of the post and you'll see it. Mizuna is nice as a salad - I liked to cut it up simply and toss it with some ponzu dressing.

When I first moved to Asia, I was unable to find a lot of the staple products and convenience foods that grace a refrigerator in Canada - salad dressing, drinks from a mix, jarred salsa, jarred pasta sauce, bagged salad, and so on. One day, when my husband and I were lamenting the lack of commercial eggnog, a tiny little brain ripple - I don't want to call it a wave, because it was so obvious the whole time - but something at the edge of my consciousness whispered, "People had salsa before Tostitos made it. People drank eggnog before Farmer's Dairy started putting it out in cartons. Make it yourself." I had seriously never, never questioned my reliance on processed convenience foods until they were taken away. After about three months, I wised up, and started to really introduce myself to the concept of a kitchen, and what it could produce, if asked to. You know, rather than just a place where packages are opened and dishes are washed. Even still, it took a whole three years, until I moved to Vietnam, and was introduced to western dishes being made fresh out of whole ingredients, every day, that I began to think - well, why do I need a jar? It tastes better this way. When I moved to Japan, and was presented with a crippling variety of fresh produce and other quality ingredients, my head basically exploded, and I really, really started to cook. Now I'm the sort of person who does know what duck confit is, and maybe is even considering making it someday. But there is still a tube of mayonnaise in my fridge. Because if you make mayonnaise from scratch, you get rather more mayonnaise than I would generally consider eating in one sitting. It's more convenient to buy bottled, and the taste is acceptable. For breakfast, I had biscuits with lemon curd. The lemon curd? Purchased. It's cheaper where I am than buying the butter and lemons. Not crazy to buy. Sure I could make it, but the valid reasons not (cost, availability of ingredients) to outweigh reasons to do it (freshness, curiosity). But something like, oh, let's say jarred pasta sauce. The first time I made pasta with tomato sauce using only a can of decent tomatoes, olive oil, and a bit of garlic, I had on-the-road-to-Damascus conversion. What the hell had I been doing the whole time? Ragu? Was I crazy? And where the hell were the people that had been letting me eat jarred pasta sauce? Enablers! I think that's the sort of "crazy not to make it yourself" type dishes to be considered. I had another friend? She turned Tokyo upside down looking for "balsamic salad dressing"? I said, "Buy a bottle of olive oil, buy a bottle of balsamic vinegar, shake them together." She said, "No, I'm looking for balsamic salad dressing."