KennethT

Is the grated coconut dried or fresh/frozen?

They're a little tough - but they're not uncommon in Indonesian stews/curries. They're typically added whole and then removed later. They're used in the woku (as well as pandan leaf which I can get frozen) and the original North Sumatra rendang. You can also slice it thinly across the grain to make it edible.

I buy or grow everything here. I can't get the buah keluak nut in shell here, but I have found prepackaged processed nut meat (meat taken out of the shell and pounded into a paste) at my local Indonesian store. I can get decent red chillies here, but I grow the Malaysian/Indonesian chillies now from seeds taken from dried chillies that I was able to bring in. I also grow the lime leaves and curry leaves - but I can buy those also in a pinch, but they're expensive. Some ingredients (like turmeric leaf used in the woku from the night before) I have to grow because it's not sold here and I can't bring back fresh ones. So I grow the turmeric leaf from the rhizome that I buy in the grocery store.

thanks - it smells amazing if you like shrimp paste!! It uses tons of it as well as the kitchen sink of SE Asian herbs/spices.

Thanks for bringing us along, as always!

Pan Southeast Asian noodle soup... Singapore chicken rice broth, Vietnamese rice noodles, Indonesian sambal cobekan...

Peranakan ayam buah keluak, chicken in black nut curry.

Icelandic cod woku, from Manado, North Sulawesi.

That conch place looks right up my alley. How were the conch fritters? That calm sound looks amazing - you could turn it into a postcard!

This is what I remember of the northern Caribbean this time of year. If your luck was like ours, years ago, the day you leave will be glorious - 80 degrees with the sun shining! In any case, your weather there is certainly better than at home right now! Here in NYC (not as bad as Boston) we have a high of a sweltering 32 degrees, coming off of a high of 17 the other day. But I wonder if the polar vortex that is affecting much of the US (including Florida) is affecting you now? I am part of a facebook group of mango tree growers - many are in Florida and the whole discussion right now is about wrapping trees to keep them from dying when it's below freezing... in Florida!!!

They've been serving crab/seafood boils like this for as long as I can remember. As a kid, we went to Baltimore, partially to have the steamed crabs, and they put newspaper on the table and dump the steamed crabs on top. No one was ever concerned about it being unhealthy since you're not actually eating (or even licking) the outside of the shells that contacts the paper. This has also been a common thing to do in a classic Louisiana crawfish boil.... Just dump them on the table and let everyone gather around and go to town! It's been like that since my grandfather was a kid and who knows how long before that! ETA: for something like spaghetti, hell no! That's just gross...

Yeah, I imagine it works like a bunch of arc welding tips creating arcs to the bottom of your pan. What happens when you lift the pan from the stove top? Too far away and you won't get arcing from the "burner" tips to the pan also, when not touching whatever the pan rests on (which I assume grounds the pan), the circuit is disconnected and the arc stops also.

Interesting, but I do have thoughts about the longevity and safety. Typically, plasma is produced by creating a very high voltage (thousands of volts) which is high enough to ionize the air (in this case), creating the plasma. I worry about how long the emitters last before needing maintenance/repair/replacement as constant arcing like that can cause carbonization (covered with soot which will damper performance). Also, the constant ionizing I imagine would create a lot of ozone - I don't know how good it is to breathe that in on a regular basis....

Southern India via Singapore headless fish head curry with masala potatoes

Please post about this!!

I thought the Kraken Burger was hilarious... first of all, how much food it is (and how much fat is probably in it!) but also, why is there no seafood in it? I'd expect some calamari or something in a Kraken burger...

Jesus... I'm drooling at that last picture... you could frame it... I'm a huge fan of the CN Batman trilogy, but the 2nd is by far and away my favorite. I find myself always watching it on a plane since my wife doesn't like to watch it - she finds Heath Ledger's performance too realistic and it freaks her out and gives her nightmares... his performance makes that movie.

Enjoy! I look forward to seeing your adventure here. How is the weather there this time of year? When I was a kid, my parents would take us during Presidents' Week to Miami (to visit the grandmothers) and then to an island in the Caribbean (to make up for Miami which was commonly 60 degrees and rainy until the day we left and then it was beautiful). We usually tried to visit the more southerly islands (like Guadeloupe and South) since it was practically guaranteed nice weather, as opposed to the windward ones which could be as dicey as Miami. Have a conch fritter for me!

Also note that different bags of shaved katsuobushi (at least that I've found in NYC) vary in price depending on how much blood line is in the shaved block. More blood line = more fishy flavor/smell. Smokiness would be similar.

I'm no expert on Japanese cuisine. Hopefully members like @Duvel will chime in... but in my layman's study, it is quite common to give dashi a smoky flavor by infusing katsuobushi flakes into the dashi briefly. Miso soup uses this technique. So it is not an uncommon thing for dashi to have a smoky flavor - but traditionally is done by infusing dried, smoked fish flakes.

We get the bison regularly - I usually either make burgers or Indonesian patties to have with a couple of sambals. It tastes like beef, but is very lean - but still juicy as long as it's not overcooked.

Practically the only other thing found in my local Wegmans supermarket, ground bison. We had received a couple avocados from our online supermarket for free last week. There were no rolls so I used a frozen English muffin. Also chipotle puree I keep in the freezer. My wife opted for the low carb version:

More done with chicken wings.... Indonesian chicken soup with ridiculously spicy sambal cobekan using my home grown rawit chillies.

Being in the NYC area, I had grown up with pizza, but the idea of the cheese was intolerable so I would pick off the cheese!

This probably would have been me. I was the pickiest kid on the planet when I was growing up. There's hope for them, yet!