Tere

wooster / wusta / woosta did a quick check with hubby - neither of us would add the shire liuzhou did a phonetic translation a while back.

I love hearing about kitchens. I'll post mine to the kitchen thread when I don't have a full complement of underthings hanging up to dry from the pig hook in the centre though! I had my kitchen hand built for me last year (well, started the year before!!). In terms of unusual storage it has a LOT of drawers, far more than the fitters were used to putting in. I did this because I had a full run of drawers for pans etc in my house in Tokyo and loved it. One of the kitchen builders I interviewed when choosing a local company was wheelchair bound and he also said that he found drawers really helpful. Since it's a forever kitchen I thought that was an interesting possibility for forward planning. I love having a lot of stuff in drawers, it makes finding things a piece of cake. Other things I really enjoy are having a full height pantry in two cupboards with pull out shelves and spice / oil racks on the doors (they were supposed to be mesh Hafele units but a measurement accident happened and they ended up being wood - less good in terms of visibility but admittedly very attractive looking). The recycling centre that's built in is pretty useful too. I also have some drawers within drawers which are ideal for flat things like placemats and such like - and a unit next to the sink which has space for wooden spoons, a chopping board and other utensils that's pretty handy. The other weird thing I asked for was a large metal clad board to be slotted in between the AGA and the wall. This can be pulled out when I actually use the bread oven and used to protect the electric hob as I scrape the ashes out.

I spent my year in the US as an exchange student in Port Henry and went to Willsboro High School. I thought your photos looked familiar! (It was not a foodie experience - Essex County is one of those food deserts we were talking about and my host mother was a non-cook who didn't believe in vegetables. Sneaking out and buying and eating a bag of frozen French beans while they were at church was the saddest act of teenage rebellion ever! )

I should probably buy some nut butter of some kind, it's been a while...

No pics, but I picked a washing up bowl of rainbow chard, spinach beet and the thinnings from the oriental tree spinach for dinner tonight, which was simply sauteed with lemon juice and butter. Oriental tree spinach rejected by hubby as too furry (which is a shame as the colours are so pretty!). (not my pic, I was being lazy - evabotanicals.co.uk) Otherwise a success, which is a big success, as he hates greens normally

Nominating "I had a spare pig's head" from the dinner thread

Ooh! I've never tried corn done that way - will have to attempt when we get our sweetcorn bed up and running!

I love this hotpot meal! Sounds like your waitress was just trying to make sure you had a good time. I've been fussed over in shabu-shabu restaurants similarly. It's not really hotpot season but I might make an exception again this weekend, weather dependent.

Nice! Would love to hear how you get on. Foraging is interesting wherever on the planet it is

Interesting. So they would be OK on a ceramic hob you think? It's not really something I need since it's usually only the two of us here and it's easy enough to make a cup for each with the Londinium at that point (we usually keep it on a timer switch so it's hot in the mornings) but I could see the utility for my friend in the larger models if it's as simple to use as a French press (he drinks a lot of coffee!) or if we ever do the B and B business we occasionally noodle about. The ones available here seem to be Bodum Pebo for the main part with middling reviews about build quality, but I'll have to bear in mind again. The one I bought him was an expensive present which got used once so it's frustrating a little to see something a quarter of the price which might work better. Hey ho, so it goes

Did it take a long time to do its thing? I bought a vacuum coffee maker for a friend off eBay a while back as a present (can't remember the brand I'm afraid) and when we tried it the coffee was good but took forever to make. It was one of those ones with the little paraffin burners though.

We have the baby https://londiniumespresso.com/ and some fancy hand grinder that I can't remember the name of but comes from the US, and I am usually drinking something from https://www.hasbean.co.uk/ as we have a Super Secret Stash subscription. My hubby (who is the coffee geek) can't drink caffeinated coffee so he has the decaf from https://ravecoffee.co.uk/. It does make good coffee but both machine and grinder were eye wateringly expensive. It keeps my hubby happy though and he's happy to do all the maintenance so that's fine. I'd probably have gone for a bean to cup thingy if it had been my choice. Or possibly the pods, although that's environmentally rather meh so maybe not.

I made the most amazing goose crackling last Christmas by stripping off the skin after roasting it (and eating for Christmas dinner) then sticking it in a pan into the bottom oven of the AGA (so 100 - 120 degrees C) then promptly forgetting about it for 18 hours or so. Rendered out nicely and so so tasty. Goose liver parfait is amazing too

Heh. The goose seems very cheap to me - my Christmas one is usually about £50. Don't forget to render off all the yummy yummy goose fat for roast potatoes!

Hey, there's nothing wrong with soup! (in fairness I've never even tasted a vegan cheese - I do have a soft spot for Tartex - style vegan pate though).

I've flown more than my share of long haul flights to Japan and you certainly go over some very tall mountains that route! Fuji-san can be spectacular too, depending on the timing of your flight. They usually remember to point it out since it's just before descent to Tokyo. I'm probably the same as your daughter - I don't really think of the risks flying over wild places. It's so much more dangerous to drive pretty much anywhere so I tend to just chill

That is a weird looking object. I've had some really nice treatments of shirako in Japan using cooked rice and a hot stone bowl. I guess that might rely on the smaller, uh, unit size and the casing, but thought I'd throw it out there in case it sparked an idea?

Wow! Definitely looks like real food to me. Japanese school dinners were similarly multicourse and made of real food when I tried them. Bit better than jam fritters when I was growing up at breaktimes (although I guess they wouldn't do that now). My girls private school was better in terms of balance but terribly dull, lots of tapioca. We used to dread salads because clearly the idea of making sure that we had enough calories hadn't gotten through and that would be ham, wilted lettuce, a couple of slices of tomato and some cucumber. Plus the dreaded salad cream. With a token slice of bread to wash it down. Sad really.

You guys are so far ahead of me! tomato plants are about 4 inches tall. I think this is a fail. Seedlings next year. Squash or courgette are looking healthy but about six inches tall, ditto sunflowers. Most beans apart from the borlotti and the runner beans are in flower, they are healthy but taking their own sweet time. Sweet peas are a washout, 3 spindly 8 inch plants that can't remember how to climb. I've grubbed out the first sowing of raab, mixed leaves and both the lines of rocket and plan to sow some more, leaving one bare because there was parsnip under it. My mixed leaves had carrot in them which was a bit random. Made Thai red curry with all the about to bolt coriander, leaving a thin fringe for seeds and hoping for a little regrowth. Dill is also growing like crazy. Basil is an inch tall at least I get to eat strawberries as a reward for all the weeding. I did go for a walk at work this lunchtime and pick some wild raspberries as an impromptu dessert, though, so I guess not all bad

(I'm not much of a fan of salad cream either)

I loved that meal, but you should come back to us and post more fabulous food! <3

Well that's a bit random. I guess I should go google Miracle Whip since it appears to be a cultural staple

Bumping this because I just read a listicle and this little titbit intrigued me. " Using your dominant hand, touch your pointer finger to the muscle at the base of your thumb, on the palm. The fleshy part that you can move freely. When you use your pointer finger and press down on that muscle, that is rare. Middle is medium rare, ring is medium, pinky is well done. (Don't ever cook meat to well done.)" Source: http://www.knowable.com/a/21-chefs-share-crucial-cooking-tips-and-tricks-that-everyone-should-know/p-3 Thoughts? Do you think that might work? I usually use a meat thermometer when cooking on the Kamado Joe but I liked the simplicity of this rule of thumb.

Yeah, I find that I search it a lot when I fancy using a particular ingredient. Last time was to find a decent mushroom risotto and a decent poached pear recipe for last Sunday's dinner. Much quicker than randomly flicking through cookbooks.

Heh. I always par boil my roasties for a decent length of time. Heston's a fan of a longish par boil too, IIRC. And Maris Piper potatoes