hsimay

hey there, i don't think you can use a non-commercial dehydrator unless it can use a spray drying tray in it, but you can try using mesh tray and spray the mixture over it. i use very little liquid in my mixture, i got my commercial dryer from a second hand dealer and i use tray drying technique. best method for a coco powder drink is to buy dehydrated vanilla granules and mix it with your dairy powder. I won't use a creamer which contains hydrogenated vegetable oils. check the labels if you don't have the time, get grounded organic french vanilla and mix it in, i love the brand Tahitian Gold for other organic stuff - got my supply from http://www.naturesflavors.com

You can purchase vanilla flavored dairy powder locally in grocers or your nearest online grocer. I doubt they are really that high end, using real vanilla. or you can be crazy like me and actually dehydrate my own reconstituted dairy powder, adding the vanilla pod in the hot milk then setting my dehydrator up for 2-3days, and blend back into powder. but then again I don't know how you are going to use the powder, do you want it as a powder form or a liquid? the method changes with temperature.

You can purchase vanilla flavored dairy powder locally in grocers or your nearest online grocer. I doubt they are really that high end, using real vanilla. or you can be crazy like me and actually dehydrate my own reconstituted dairy powder, adding the vanilla pod in the hot milk then setting my dehydrator up for 2-3days, and blend back into powder. but then again I don't know how you are going to use the powder, do you want it as a powder form or a liquid? the method changes.

I scored a few packs of Darjeeling White bud Tea (Thurbo first flush) after visiting the bio dynamic tea garden in Darjeeling in Spring Very delicate floral, almost orchid scent, and very addictive in scent and taste. I caught myself sniffing my fingertips dipped with warm tea while wrapping myself around the couch. Was taught the 3 minute brew, any longer will bring out the bitters I was told. Ahhhh

Firstly I have to warn you about Lonely planet in regards to food reviews/guides. DON'T READ THEM! Lonely planet food reviews are awfully bad, the guides really love their pizza and pancakes and know nothing about good regional foods. For the 4 days while you are there, visit the sites like Borbodur, Prambanan, The bird market, the royal palace Kraton, walk around the Batik making streets (near the Kraton) Spend a night at the touristy Prambanan ballet performance on the Ramayana. Or visit one of the gamelan schools found at Kraton square, they practise during the evenings. The Dieng plateau is a little over-rated as it filled with rather tiny uneventful temples. Food wise, Yogya people love their food overly sweet and spicy hot! Try the pandang food, or nasi gudeng warungs. The better warungs are situated near the Kraton square, a row of them selling Nasi Gudeg, they are open during the day and are popular with Indonesian tourist visiting the Kraton Palace during Procession festivals. There's the famous jackfruit curry Gudeg, the dry beef curry rendang, for street snacks try a kind of sweet donut, much like a soggy sugared krispy kreme. Try their fruit shakes like Avacado (avokat) blended with a coffee-chocolate syrup and thick sweeten condensed milk. The Yogya version of Avokat is extremely sweet and addictive. The other addictive drink was Susu Ga-merah, soda with strawberry syrup and sweeten condensed milk. Stay away from Maliboro, the tourist portion of Yogya. You will get bombarded with tons of Becak drivers or touts showing you Batik 'art museums' Along the main road to the countryside, are the little shops selling grilled meats, sate kambing (lamb) and if you are lucky, sata kuda (horse meat) or snake. the grilled meats are dipped in sweeten dark soya sauce with sliced chilli. The horse and snake meat usually eaten during the cooler months. Ask around where they sell the snakes if you are into exotic meats. I was shown a snake in a duffel bag, the lady took the snake out to show it, placed it back in the duffel bag and banged the head with a blunt chopper. It was quite a show, killing it right in front of you before grilling in over the hot coal. The little stalls are easy to mark out, just look for the sign that says Sate Kuda/Kambing. Market wise there isn't really a night market scene around Yogya, the people tend to sleep rather early, although you might see many university students partying the night away. Yogya has a few big universities which many students around Java come for their extended education. There's a traditional market at the countryside which is only held once a month, check with your guide, I can't remember the name of it. I was brought around by the locals. A great sight filled with live animals such as goats, chicken and other weird looking food stuff. Check out the indonesian men who love parading their prize wining roosters or song birds. Birds seem to be everywhere, so do check out their bird market during the weekends. At Solo, check out the little cottage factories, apparently thats where the best gamelan instruments are made, and there's the famous solo tapioca and fish crackers, spiral shaped crackers which are found in every warungs. At the Solo bird market ask around if there is any on-going bird singing competition, or any weekly cock fighting. And if you are lucky, you get to see lamb slaughterings, fascinating stuff! Have seen too many animal slaughters in my time, although a semi vegetarian, i seem to be pretty immune to the killings. Give us a report when you are back.

Hey Peter, great read! Wish I have read it before I went to Lao (its suppose to be the correct spelling) during the Chinese lunar new year period. It would have made my trip a little better! Spent a day in Vietiane before heading to Luang Prabang for 2 days. I had only 4 days to spare and it was a pretty rush trip. Amazingly after being accustomised to plentiful afforable lodging around SouthEast Asia, Lao was a shock in finding decent affordable rooms, I had spend hours finding places both in Vietiane and Luang Prabang, I had to beg for rooms! Didnt like Vietiane on my first day, so i made a long bus ride to Luang Prabang, a wonderful decision, I would have been miserable in Vietiane. Had a few difficulty in finding local food places here, the laotians seem to like their meat hidden in their vegetables. I'm semi-vegetarian so it was quite an effort finding local places serving just vegetarian. Any vegetable dish had some minced meat hidden in it somewhere! Sneaky! During my walks around the ancient city, past a shop, and saw a few locals eating their lunches. I looked longingly at some local laotian while they had their lovely home-cooked food filled with sticky rice , dips and fresh vegetables and wraps. Wish I could find them in local restaurants. The locals had a huge communal plate filled with the various dips, fresh vegetables, some kind of fried summer rolls and sticky rice. Some noodle dips were wrapped with a kind of lettuce before eating and others were dipped with sticky rice which were rolled into a ball before eating. Alas non of that for me! I had to keep looking for food! all they had was small little pho noodle shops filled with meats and innards of buffalo and pork. I guess the Laotians don't really eat out much! Way too many tourist food places, where are the locals! I did find a decent food lane near the Hmong Night market serving rather hearty vegetarian food. These little stalls open only at night and it seem most stalls were offering their version of "Vegetarian Buffet" for us$0.50. Extremely decent, this was the best dinner I had in Lao! It also came with a dessert of fried sugared battered banana fritter. Bargain! The fritt had this overly sweet yet tasty burnt sugar crunch with bits of banana in it. It tasted much better than the one i had on Xiang Thong road - the main touristy bit of the city, which cost me $1 for just a couple of cut up fritts and tasteless batter. On my last day, a chance finding of this up-coming restaurant Tamarind Cafe serving Laotian food set up by an expat. It is situated opposite to a Wat temple. It served pretty fresh laotian dips and pretty decent local dishes. The owner was pretty enthusiastic in explaining the dishes. I did have a good impression of Laotian food finally after all the dreadful disappointment. Was introduced to tomato chilli dip which was charred bbq before being pulverised into a dip. Smoked eggplant dip was my favorite, charred again to give that burnt favor, tasty, tangy and very healthy indeed! Pity they only open during the day from 11am to 6pm and open late only on friday for their 20 seater Taste of Lao BBQ fish night The most disappointing meal was at Indochina Spirite, recommended as one of the better restaurant serving the best Laotian food by. The manager from my hostel mentioned it was one of the most expensive restaurant in the city. It was rather overpriced for the quality of food served, uttler disappointment. Their "popular" dishes, Larp fish (minced fish salad), something with minced eggplant and some shrimp fish dish, the lao papaya salad were pretty saltish and mediocre. The only saving grace was the Chai Penne, the pulverised green river moss snack with dried tomato and garlic fried. It was pretty tasty and became one of my favorites. Spent a late morning at the Phosi market, thats where i got a couple of Laotian food stuff like a big bag of Chai Penne, some moist brown sugarcane block sprinkled with chopped peanuts.Lao coffee, lao burnt tea and some unknown brown sugar which looked more like globs of burnt honeycombs. Boy they sure like their stuff burnt! I must admit I have been spoilt by the affordable places such as cambodia, thailand, indonesia, malaysia and singapore, Lao takes a little getting use. Question! I do need some help from a Laotian food expert. Fried some Chai Penne and it tasted bland and definately not crispy like the ones at the restaurant. No wanting to waste my precious river moss for experiment, any suggestions on frying the river moss? I tried frying at slow low heat, the Chai penne only manage to stay crisp for a couple of minutes. High quick heat that burnt the extremely thin sheet brown. Do you add anything to the oil and whats the best frying method for the Chai penne to stay crisp.

What I love was the fermented soya bean , "tampeh" that is sweetened and fried, mixed with fried soya bean curd, jungle long bean call Patai (which smells like uric acid and said to be good for diabetics), sweet black soya sauce, "ketchup manis", all fried with shrimp chilli sambal. It's cooked in sunda style which is different from the other regions. It is a sweet yet dense dish. If you have time, drive to Sukabumi and Puncak, along the way drop by to any of the sunda warung for the huge array of food that is laid on the table and you pay for what you eat. A word of warning, every dish is incredibly spicy.

Foodie = one who lives to eat. I used to eat just about anything just for the experience of it, from fried ants to whales (yes don't kill me, I have tried a piece decomposed whale meat) to any body part of an animal that was considerable untouchable by the rest of the mass population Then I became a seafood-vegetarian.

The sad fact about food these days, much of them are mass produced in factories or central kitchens. All processed food, that includes Yong Tau foo. Most food stalls buy their mass produced yong tau foo and sauces from factories. The nice yong tau foo stalls around, buy their processed fish paste from some factory and create their own fish paste vegetables, the chain stall food court just buy all their processed ingredients,, little preparation needed. So are singapore favorites such as laksa, chinese carrot cake bases, rice dumplings, dimsum, satay, soya bean curd and soya milk and chilli sauces etc Yes, most food hawkers no longer start from scratch, they buy all processed food.

For Singapore Markets Not exactly attractive in terms of the Tourist factor, but a good market for me is one where I can get my good variety of local produce/ingredients without having to visit various places. 1. Zhujiao Centre (Tekka Market) ,Buffalo Road, little india precinct 2. Suburbs - Ghim Moh Market, Ghim Moh road, west side of singapore 3. Suburbs - Toa Payoh Market, Toa Payoh Lorong 1 Blk 127, north side of singapore

In many of the traditional japanese restaurants (yakitori, izakaya joints etc) they do use portabello mushrooms or non typical produce which is popular nowdays. Foie gras yaki and portabello teriyaki etc. Call it an globalisation in cuisines where produce once not available locally is largely abundant and the ever inventive chefs create new dishes out of them and owning that produce. In Australia, where is a large immigrant population, they are blessed with the many varieties of produce once non-native, such as green vegetable, Bok Choy, japanese kumara (sweet potato) etc. All these now make up we were call Australian Cuisine. Who would have thought a chinese vegetable, Bok Choy has become a local aussie vegetable. In Hong Kong and many other chinese restaurants there is a growing trend incorporating non-native produce and creating dishes that they can call their own. Deep fried foie gras dishes, zucchni flower or eggplant fries. Totally foreign in their ingredients but putting their signature in the ingredient. Only in HongKong do chefs deep fry foie gras! I'm crazy about indian food, and like many other cultures, they have a huge variety of different sub-cuisine. The Parsi have beef dishes, and other non-hindus have them, there is the non-hindus moguls who have great beef seek kebabs. India is such a big country, you can't just categorise indian food under one roof. There is the portugese influenced Goan dishes or Kerala (who uses coconut instead of milk in their curries , well known for their seafood dishes). Chenai for its vegetarian dishes. I'm chinese, and there is a huge difference between the difference chinese sub-cultures. Example, I can't take pekingese (salty/vinegar inspired) or szechuan (pungent spicy pepper) because I grew up with a southern chinese palate which consist of fresh ingredients without the heavy spices/sauces, bland with flavors coming mainly from the use of its fresh ingredients, much like Osaka cuisine. I can't take American Chinese food in general, they are adulterated and definately not "authentic".