haresfur

A golden orb-weaver, Trichonephila edulis. According to wikipedia they are edible.

TL/DR; I will never touch rose hips again I was out mowing our neighbour's paddock and noticed how lovely the rose hips looked on a couple of wild rose bushes So I foolishly thought, "I should pick some and do something with them." Went back and picked about a kilo, trying not to disturb this sweet girl, although I ened up carrying a fair number of her offspring back to the house. The haul after trimming off most of the woody bits. I first started some rose hip vinegar, which only involved trimming then scraping off the worst of the little thorns, poking each one a bunch of times with a needle, and putting in a bottle with white wine vinegar. Then I started on some syrup. There was a difference of opinion on whether to remove the seeds which have hairs that used to be used in itching powder and apparently can be nasty to your insides. Didn't sound like fun so I got out a knife and started cutting them in half and scraping out seeds with a spoon. Never had a knife get dull so fast. I could hear the scraping against the seeds. The cut open halves were very sticky and the seed removal didn't work well. Gave up before I got very far and put what I had in a ziplock with water to go into the sous vide at 55 C to try to preserve the vitamin C. Got a couple of hundred ml of reddish looking product which I filtered through a coffee filter since I really didn't want itchy insides. Then tried the technique recommended on another site and just blitzed the trimmed hips in a blender. This also didn't work very well since the hips were too sticky to blend well. Took the resulting mass of gooey seeds and simmered in water and strained out the seeds. Made 1:1 simple syrup with the hippy juice, which I then strained and filtered through coffee filters. Took 3 filters to get most of the syrup through. This took me a few days as I pondered my next steps when things were going wrong. During this time the ring finger on my right hand (I'm left handed) started to turn into a red, painful, swollen mess. I figured it must be spider bites but now think that wasn't the case at all. Yesterday I went to my Tai Chi club and a young woman who hadn't been for a while showed up with a bandaged up hand. She had been helping a friend make rose wreaths for a wedding and got a deep staph infection that went septic. Hospital in Melbourne misdiagnosed it and sent her home. On her way being driven back to Bendigo, she literally passed out from the pain. Was in the hospital for 8 days with them doing nasty things to get rid of the infection and damaged tissue but didn't loose the finger or more. They told her that every time they have seen this it was someone who was gardening roses. I now think I had a luckily shallow version of the same infection from the tiny rose thorns. Don't know for sure. Lesson is to wear gloves whenever mucking about with rose bits. And better yet, avoid trying to preserve rose hips.

The timer on my phone is loud enough I can hear it from the back of the house after I forget and leave it in the kitchen. Didn't help me find the phone the next morning when it was still in the kitchen, though.

Soaking the cloves is supposed to jump start their growth. And SeaSol is suggested when transplanting. Gardening Australia recommended soaking in the seaweed and who am I to question them? Reckon it can't hurt.

Don't think I'll ever get used to gardening in an area with a Mediterranean climate that also gets frost. I just planted cauliflower and garlic as my winter crops. The garlic had small cloves but I soaked them in seaweed solution and we will see if anything develops. A friend has a very large garden and has planted broad beans for years so it seems he has a huge supply. He is revegetating a lot of the property so has been using broad beans as a green mulch for erosion control. Sounds better than eating them to me.

Bubbling up out of the dishwasher?

Very nice. Haven't done it since I moved away from the land of cheap asparagus. When my nieces were young, I gave a jar to my brother's family and my sister in law was complaining because the girls were eating it all. I was like, "Heaven forbid kids should eat their vegetables!" So the next year I had to give them each a jar.

I was just about to post a link to ScienceOfSharp. You are correct from his research that honing creates a micro-bevel rather than just rearranging the metal but I think the point is still that honing does only affect a localized area of the blade. Supports my use of the SpyderCo less acute bevel as a hone. Of course the issue with the SpyderCo for sharpening is that you can't change the angles. I haven't read up on honing and stropping of straight razors but that might be more akin to what could be done with a low angle single bevel Japanese blade.

And you can peel a potato in your hand old-style without slicing your thumb off

Isn't that the idea of honing as opposed to sharpening?

I've been using the fine-grit ceramic rods on my SpyderCo sharpener as a hone. I reckon the grit is the same and I'm an incompetent sharpener so a few passes at a consistent angle work well.

I would absolutely go with panko crusted and baked that has become my go-to for chicken katsu and parma.

Shun seem to be a decent, widely available brand from what I have read. I have a really cheap nakiri that has served well for decades. I think there are advantages to a softer, easy to sharpen steel that isn't as prone to chipping for people who don't want to faff around with their knives. That being said, I am learning more about hard Japanese steel. I guess because I'm willing to faff around.

Just burned leeks, too. And I'm sure my stove is wimpier than yours. Maybe they are particularly prone to burning? Luckily I was able to salvage most.

Yes you definitely need the acid, like for braised red cabbage. Mine has been sitting in the fridge for a while and is slightly blue. Needs some lemon to freshen up.

Aka Shiso Juice makes a nice refreshing drink and growing the red shiso isn't too hard. Well, getting the right amount of sun can be a bit tricky - mine needs full sun in spring and partial shade later. I grow it in pots and it self-seeds for the next year. If you want booze, it makes a nice sub for simple in a Tom Collins

I don't have induction any more but kind of wish I did. It looks like the auto-size only has a couple of settings so you don't get the spreading effect you might from gas as you crank the burners. An option is to lower the heat so the pan has time to spread the temperature out to keep from scorching. One thing about induction is that it is very efficient so the pot heats up very fast so you are really depending on the pot bottom to keep things even. High quality pans with copper in the bottom might help. You could also try putting a griddle on the burner beneath the pan to help spread the heat. Unfortunately, this might be a place where a more expensive unit might be better. The other thing I didn't like about my induction was that the temperature control wasn't fine enough. That could also be a problem in getting the whole pot to the exact temperature you want.

$35/750 mL retail. I've never seen small bottles, which is one reason I don't generally keep it around - don't drink it fast enough.

We went to a local cocktail bar/restaurant for a couple of drinks for a bit of a celebration with partial success. We started with gin cocktails of their menu and then I started going through other classic cocktails I wanted to have someone make for me. No success. They had quite a few gins on the shelf so I thought maybe a martini. They didn't have any dry vermouth. Sigh, didn't even get to the specifying ratios part. I wish them success, and I suppose I understand given the cost of Noilly Prat here if no one orders it, but really?

The Roma tomatoes and basil are doing ok. So there is this: But we have had a cool summer so far and I fear they are going to suffer with this week's heat. The warrigal greens look nice but the leaves are quite small. Do you think they should be thinned? The volunteer in the yard looks good so I've been watering it to see if it will take over. The red shiso was doing very well in spring but seems to need shade but not too much shade so I moved it behind the red gum tree. Finally, my bullhorn pepper didn't make it another year so I planted some sort of capsicum in there. Then multiple other seedlings sprouted along with some green shiso. It looks lush so I just left it to do what it wants. Probably won't get any peppers.

I'll never again put the lunch leftovers in a container then forget to put the container in the fridge

@kayb looks like you are ready in case there's another wave. Good job

Murray Stenson does (or did - not sure what he's up to) free pour. He's pretty well regarded.

I mean consistency in getting the right pour then go from there on getting the right dilution. I don't care how the bartender measures the volume as long as they get it right.

Interesting. Here souvlaki is skewered chunks of meat, often sold by fish and chip shops that may or may not have a rotisserie gathering dust in the corner. I think it must be a law that all chippies sell it but learned that it is worth the extra steps to walk 30 metres to the Turkish run shop rather than going to the Chinese shop. However, since a kabab shop opened up across the street, I usually go there for a halal snack pack.