KennethT

There is no shame in wine tasting at 10AM.... some professionals start even earlier!

It's amazing how much produce a supermarket can throw out each week in the US. Most of the time, supermarkets wind up throwing out produce that started out as not cosmetically perfect, because many US consumers associate cosmetic appeal with freshness and flavor. This is why most farmers (especially the large agro-corps) in the US grow crops that are engineered or selected for cosmetic uniformity and appeal as well as shipping stability and storage, rather than for flavor. Sorry to derail this thread, but I have been doing a lot of research lately as I'm prepping to start some indoor farming to sell. I have some unused warehouse space that I think I can put to good use! But growing for a business is different than growing for fun - so it's important to understand the average consumer... hence the research since most people who are active on this site are certainly NOT average consumers!

I love those toilets! We had one in our hotel in Saigon last year... I joked that I never wanted to leave the bathroom!

@liuzhou I'm sure the transliterations I am using are Cantonese based - as the Cantonese (lots from HK) were the first to come to NY over a hundred years ago. Only relatively recently (last 10-15 years?) have there been more and more restaurants and shops owned by people who spoke Mandarin or something other than Cantonese. I gather there's been a large influx of Fujianese in the last several years.

What a fascinating story... thanks for sharing.

Yes, definitely water tolerant... also acid tolerant and chemical (strong oxidizer) tolerant... I swear I'm not trying to sell this stuff!

That's it... another time (I don't know if I wrote about it or not) I used the GS successfully - but didn't use it in slurry form - I just added the powder to the pureed shrimp by weight, then spread between two sheets of plastic wrap and refrigerated. After set, I sliced them into fettucine-like noodles and cooked sous vide.

The loctite 1min epoxy looks ok - but it won't be as strong as JB Weld. As you can tell, I'm a huge fan of JBW - I've used it for repairing all sorts of things - an industrial perchloroethylene degreaser, high pressure water lines, parts that will hit high temperatures. It's great. Once cured, you can drill it, tap it, file it, etc.... https://www.lowes.com/pd/J-B-WELD-2-oz-Epoxy-Adhesive/3377874

What type of glue is the loctite? Is it a cyanoacrylate? Many of those types of glues (even in gel form) don't work well on porous products. If you have a way of clamping it together, I would use an epoxy, or JB Weld, which is amazing, but takes a long time to cure.

Many years ago, I made seafood noodles using GS - back then, I had quite a few conversations with the Ajinomoto NY area rep who gave me a lot of advice to shorten the learning curve... I wrote about it in a few threads here, but I don't recall the names of them...

I used to drink a lot of Lung Ching (Dragon's well green tea) - although, when I had it in Beijing they called it Long Jian. Now, on the weekends, I like a nice Jasmine in the morning, and usually either a Taiwanese oolong (only lightly fermented) or a Ti Kwan Yin (the one I get is pretty heavily fermented). I wish I could get some of the Ti Kwan Yin that I had in Hong Kong - it was only mid-level fermented - not as grassy as the Taiwanese Tung Ting that I have, but not nearly as heavily fermented as what I get at home. At work, I can't deal with loose leaf tea so I have to use tea bags... so for that I have a Japanese Sencha that's pretty good and pretty inexpensive. My local Japanese mart sells it for about $4 for a box of 20, and I can get two steepings out of a bag.

Also, the drive out to Etxebarri is great... Reminded us of Lord of the Rings...

I second @Duvel's recommendation. My wife and I were in Barcelona/San Sebastian several years ago - it was an amazing food trip - and Etxebarri was a major highlight, which is saying something because some of the other highlights were El Bulli and Can Roca!

I know this isn't really helpful - but, as a side note, while I've never tried them, I see them advertise ALL THE TIME... it's crazy how much they advertise...

Thank you for sharing your trip with us!

what about parchment paper?

What a great article... thanks for posting it!

I've always liked grilled figs... brush with oil, liberally s&p, and grill...

Last year when in Beijing, we had a salad at a donkey burger restaurant - at the time, I had no idea what the green was - I thought some kind of romaine lettuce, but it looked just like your photo of the celtuce tops! I'm sure that's what it was! Thanks!

I don't know if this is the proper forum to put this, but I saw an interesting article talking about how blockchain technologies, like Bitcoin, are helping to track food shipments and find sources of fake food... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-06/spies-blockchain-and-alibaba-beating-china-s-fake-food-scourge

Growing up, we had a few different fruit trees... a couple different apples, peaches, etc. I seem to remember that we'd have to give the trees some kind of fertilizer every year, otherwise they wouldn't really produce too much fruit. I have strong memories of driving a stake about 1" in diameter into the ground about 6-12" from the tree trunk, angled inwards, then, once in about 6", moved around to widen the hole. We then poured in about a handful of some kind of gray fertilizer that looked like small gravel. I know that's not really helpful, but I was a kid. We stopped fertilizing the trees after I was about 12 years old or so because the neighbors would wind up stealing most of our fruit before we could pick any! This was back before you could set up a video camera to watch the thieves in action....

Thanks for taking us along!

Getting ready to put the yu choi and cloned herbs back in the main windowsill garden... but first, I have to give it a proper cleaning and sterilizing!

@liuzhou I could go through those mangosteens and one or two of those mangoes in one sitting!

@helenjp Try a little chili and salt with it!