KennethT

That's gorgeous. I definitely have to look into this for the future. Have you had any Madeiras (the wines) yet? There are a ton of excellent small producers who don't really get exported. My wife loves the sercial while I have a bit more a sweet tooth and go for the bual... although I wouldn't turn down a nice old malmsey either!

As opposed to the imaginary kind? 🤣

I need to get me one of those. It is a real pain in the a&& going it with a knife!

Since I won't be going to SE Asia any time soon, I decided to bring some of it to me... Just got in a box of a Thai variety of pineapple (grown in Guatemala).

Whew! So you ARE human after all....

You make this kind of feast when you don't have any time?!?

Fascinating. I hope to see much more of your trip! I love Madeira's fortified wines but know very little about the place or its food in general.

http://heritagegarden.uic.edu/curry-leaf-tree-murraya-koenigii ETA: I don't know how strong the gamthi type is, but i can't imagine any type that is stronger than the standard type which is what I have. I got the start from Logees Greenhouse. With this plant, you pretty much have to get a start from somewhere since it grows incredibly slowly from seed, and it won't propagate from a branch you get from the grocery store.

Sichuan braised mahi mahi.

Do you know what variety of curry plant you have? There are 3 varieties - 1 in particular grows really slowly. The one I have grows like a weed.

@liuzhouhow's your mushroom log doing?

you might be surprised to hear this, but that's what I did! It was at least 33% taller before i took that photo! I've seen a lot of YouTube videos who grow curry leaf trees outside - this time of year they'll drop most or all of their leaves, but in the spring they'll come back bigger than before, so I'm hopeful that it will do well once it gets over the root trimming shock. I've also moved it away from the main garden area because it was being crowded by the lemongrass, so now it's got a lot more space and its own light. I'm not giving it too much light for the first few days so it can reestablish some roots.

Also, lately, it's been shaded a lot by the lemongrass which has really exploded lately. It's practically shading the whole garden!

I wound up trimming the roots - I trimmed about an inch off the bottom and then made about 6 wedges (top to bottom) in the root ball to make space so I could gently pull apart what's left. I'm going to put it i the same size pot for now - one issue with coco coir is planting something in too big of a container - ideally with coco coir, you want to the media to dry out fast enough to have to fertigate frequently rather than having to water occasionally. Using too big of a pot is a recipe for root rot issues. So now that I've pruned a bunch of the roots, I'll put it back in the same fabric pot and keep an eye on it to transfer the whole new rootball into a larger one in the somewhat near future.

Mine had the same growth pattern (but it was like 3x as tall) - but I kept pruning branches that were sickly, so this is what's left. I let it go way too long before checking it out. Before it started not looking so good it was really bushy and grew ridiculously fast. I woudl top it and by the next week, it had put out like 3 new branches that would already by 6 inches long each. You could practically sit down and watch it grow.

Thanks - this makes sense. What's interesting is that since I always let the root zone dry out a bit between waterings (I have a moisture sensor in there) and I also use an enyzmatic product with every watering that essential eats rot, none of the roots look yellow or lifeless - they all look great. And since it was in a fabric pot, all of the roots were air pruned so it doesn't have the classic potted plant root bound look. I guess I"m just trying to decide whether I should trim the roots and put back in teh same size fabric pot, or put it in a larger one.

Thanks. Can you be a bit more specific? Do you think it's a good idea to go in there with knife and/or scissors and cut out a bunch of roots? And what do you mean by "pull apart"? It's a single tree, not a grass or bunch of plants where the roots have grown together.

My curry leaf tree hasn't been doing so well for quite a while, so I finally had time to take it out of its fabric pot and dry root it to check out the root system.... the roots look fine (no root rot), but holy crap! Look at that root density!

Yes, really. Super thin at the point of the triangle. Perfect pizza for folding. The dough is also a bit chewy rather than crisp, as a good NY pizza is supposed to be. But I love their crust/sauce/cheese ratio.

No, the induction burner is used as a stand to get the pizza a bit closer to the heat lamp. When the pizza is on the countertop, it doesn't stay quite hot enough. The way it is, there's no difference between the first and last slices. I use the heat lamp becuase I don't have an oven large enough to accommodate a whole pizza. In the old apartment, I'd just throw the box in a warm oven to keep it hot between slices, but not having a full sized oven in the new apartment forces one to get creative. But I thought it was ridiculous when renovating the place to purchase and take the space of a full sized oven just to be a dedicated pizza warmer...

After all this discussion about Joe's pizza, I was in the mood... I think the A team was on last night. The crust in the center was maybe 1-2mm thick. And yes, that's an infrared heat lamp to keep the pizza hot while we're eating. It works quite well.

Now I'm curious as to where you went!!!! Do you remember the name of the place?

The Joe's I order from practically once a week is close to Union Sq - it's on 14th St. just off the corner of 3rd Ave. between 3rd and 4th Aves.

And for those who read the Singapore blog and wondered how easy/difficult it was to talk to people, Violet Oon has a very standard Singaporean accent... it's very distinctive but everyone basically sounds like her.

Or their shower is in their kitchen...