Unexpected Food Gifts

[KennethT]

1 hour ago, ElsieD said:

 

My SIL grows all her vegetables, including heirloom tomatoes which she grows from seed saved from the previous year.   I'm going to see if I can snag a plant and try to grow it in our apartment.  We face west so lots of light.

If growing indoors, you will probably need a plant light in addition to the window.  I was in a southern facing window on the 21st floor (nothing blocking the sun) but the light was necessary.  I used an 18/6 light cycle - heirloom tomatoes don't use the light timing to start flowering - they basically start flowering pretty soon, although I plucked the flowers until the plant made it's third truss of branches. Tomato plants need a LOT of light to fruit successfully.  Also, indoors, you'll have to manually pollinate the flowers - I used an electric toothbrush.  Vibrate the flower truss until you see the pollen falling out like snow.

[liuzhou]

I just took delivery of some seafood I ordered. Included was this

 

 

The essentials for the Chinese kitchen. Garlic, ginger, chilli, Chinese chives and coriander leaf/cilantro. Plus two eggs. Unordered and uncharged-for.

 

 

Edited March 11 by liuzhou (log)

[Smithy]

I was getting a propane bottle filled, and a gentleman pulled up with one of his own to be filled. While he waited his turn, he offered me 2 huge heads of lettuce! He also had a bag of 5, already planned, for the propane salesman. They were beautiful, plump heads of iceberg. From his own garden? From some farmer's field that this gentleman picks? From the box I spotted along the freeway the next day, having apparently fallen off a truck? i don't know. I didn't care; they were freely offered and accepted, and they were beautiful.

 

Alas, they're still sitting in the refrigerator. It's been a hectic few weeks. I hope I can figure out ways to put them to good use in a few more days.

[MaryIsobel]

44 minutes ago, Smithy said:

I was getting a propane bottle filled, and a gentleman pulled up with one of his own to be filled. While he waited his turn, he offered me 2 huge heads of lettuce! He also had a bag of 5, already planned, for the propane salesman. They were beautiful, plump heads of iceberg. From his own garden? From some farmer's field that this gentleman picks? From the box I spotted along the freeway the next day, having apparently fallen off a truck? i don't know. I didn't care; they were freely offered and accepted, and they were beautiful.

 

Alas, they're still sitting in the refrigerator. It's been a hectic few weeks. I hope I can figure out ways to put them to good use in a few more days.

I see a classic wedge salad in your future!

[TdeV]

@Smithy, I was looking for cabbage last night, to put in a casserole of tomato chutney (made with dehydrated tomatoes, apple, raisins, etc) with thin slices of russet potatoes, onions, and cheese.

 

Not finding any cabbage, I sliced up half an iceberg. Which worked really well!

[liuzhou]

I think I can squeeze this in here.  I ordered a case of 24 bottles x 555ml of drinking water. Plus 250g of pistachios.

 

 

 

For some reason they included something they've never done before in the four years I've been ordering my water from the same supplier.  A flower to decorate my dinner table. 

 

 

For the first time in decades, I eat with a floral centrepiece on my table.

 

 

 

[Maison Rustique]

An acquaintance that I met a few years ago in a canning class has stayed in touch via Facebook. She saw that I've been having a hard time with my husband's care and sent me this. So thoughtful! Really made my day.

Edited March 13 by Maison Rustique
fix typos (log)

[Kerala]

 

One of my trainees gave me these today at the end of her 6 month rotation in General Practice.

[donk79]

On 3/28/2024 at 5:36 PM, Kerala said:

 

One of my trainees gave me these today at the end of her 6 month rotation in General Practice.

Hardly exceptional items, but in my opinion, she ain't wrong about their worthiness!

[liuzhou]

Having only recently moved, I don't really know my new neighbours but today I met one in the elevator who handed me a pineapple, saying "I have too many! Please enjoy." Well. she actually said "我有太多了。请尽情享受吧!", which comes to the same thing. I accepted and fully intend, too. How my neighbour came to have excess pineapples, I chose not to ask.

 

 

It's not quite ready. but there's no hurry.

 

 

 

 

[TdeV]

What options are you contemplating for that pineapple, @liuzhou ?

[liuzhou]

11 hours ago, TdeV said:

What options are you contemplating for that pineapple, @liuzhou ?

 

I haven't really thought about it. I'm not a big fan of pineapple in savoury situations apart from fried rice, so I guess some will go there. Some will be eaten as is.

 

Always open to suggestions, though.

 

[liuzhou]

There are some things I like to put in my mouth that aren't available in my local markets or supermarkets but I can order for delivery. Today, among other things I ordered some portobello mushrooms (rare here) and one of my favourite black boletes (one is more than enough for a meal for me - they're large). Within minutes of placing my order my phone rang.

 

Portobello Mushrooms

 

"Hello, this is Ms. Li from Xincai (name of delivery company). I'm sorry but we're out of portobellos. Can we  send you an extra black bolete instead?" Of course, she said it in the local dialect of Chinese that being what most of them speak around here for some reason. Wishing to be agreeable, I agreed. I said "OK" in Universal Language.

 

30 minutes later my order turned up.

 

 

Two black boletes, and an unordered or paid for pack of essentials for Chinese cooking and a couple of eggs. Obviously the essentials and eggs were gifts, but given that the extra black bolete costs double what the portobellos would have, I'm considering that a partial gift, too.

 

Essentials

 

 

Edited May 14 by liuzhou (log)

[KennethT]

This came in the mail for us:

 

A small bottle of olive oil made from very old olive trees in Napa, California. It's even hard to open due to the wax cap....

[Shelby]

UPS man came by the other day with this!

 

 

From my mom and step dad

 

It's tucked away in the freezer.  Nice to have something fun in there to look forward to.

[liuzhou]

Some things I can only find from the delivery people rather than in the market or supermarkets. One is blood sausage, which I fancied this morning. I also ordered some clams and 芥菜 (jiè cài), which you probably know as gailan, the Canto-name.

 

But that is not my point here. Along with my order came this large (250g), unexpected bunch of  空心菜 (kōng xīn cài, literally 'hollow heart vegetable'), water spinach or ong choy in Cantonese, rau muống in Vietnamese, and ผักบุ้ง (phak bung) in Thai. They also included some pre-peeled garlic cloves. I guess they have a glut of it. It is the most popular green vegetable here, so they may have overstocked. Anyway, thanks!

 

 

You can see the 'hollow' hearts here.

 

 

Edited September 19 by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

Yesterday evening, I ordered a delivery of a six pack of the local brew. Six cans of the required duly arrived and I stuck them in the fridge. They're still there. Plans changed.

 

This morning, I was clearing up and was about to throw away the plastic bag* the cans came in when I noticed there was a foreign object lurking in the bottom.

Investigation revealed a small package containg one 盐焗鸡蛋 (yán jú jī dàn) or salt baked chicken egg. Either a gift or it fell in accidentally. I did check but the store in question doesn't seem to carry these eggs. Perhaps it was the packer's breaktime snack. I'll never know.

 

 

 

* I do normally try to re-use plastic bags but this one had been packed by one of those people found working in the food and beverage delivery business worldwide who went to that special university and took a master's degree in tying plastic bags so tightly that they can only be opened by destroying them.

 

 

Edited June 24 by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

The beer delivery people are continuing to throw random snack-type things into my deliveries. Not every time, but about half.

 

I just collect them waiting until some passing friends with kids drop buy. I certainly ain’t eating them. Especially the first.

 

This goes by the name of ‘Yogurt Sandwich’. Even if this wasn’t a ludicrous concept, it still fails as it is no such thing. It is ludicrously sweet blotting paper encasing even sweeter white, white gloop. Truly disgusting.

 

Oddly the Chinese for yogurt, 酸奶 (suān nǎi) translates as ‘sour milk’. It never is.

 

 

 

The second was these, described in baby talk which I’m not even going to translate. The ingredients list mentioned ‘chicken meat flavour’, which usually means no chicken involved, and onions then fifteen items with names as long as Great Wall. All industrial effluent. Binned them.

 

 

 

Finally, these are Cat’s Ears. Not literally. The reassuringly shorter ingredients list reads wheat flour, palm oil, sugar, salt, sesame, spices (2%), ammonium bicarbonate (preservative). Still landfill.

 

 

Edited June 28 by liuzhou (log)

[Katie Meadow]

13 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

The beer delivery people are continuing to throw random snack-type things into my deliveries. Not every time, but about half.

 

I just collect them waiting until some passing friends with kids drop buy. I certainly ain’t eating them. Especially the first.

 

This goes by the name of ‘Yogurt Sandwich’. Even if this wasn’t a ludicrous concept, it still fails as it is no such thing. It is ludicrously sweet blotting paper encasing even sweeter white, white gloop. Truly disgusting.

 

Oddly the Chinese for yogurt, 酸奶 (suān nǎi) translates as ‘sour milk’. It never is.

 

 

 

The second was these, described in baby talk which I’m not even going to translate. The ingredients list mentioned ‘chicken meat flavour’, which usually means no chicken involved, and onions them fifteen items with names as long as Great Wall. All industrial effluent. Binned them.

 

 

 

Finally, these are Cat’s Ears. Not literally. The reassuringly shorter ingredients list reads wheat flour, palm oil, sugar, salt, sesame, spices (2%), ammonium bicarbonate (preservative). Still landfill.

 

 

Cat's Ears is a good name, though. Too bad if you were expecting Fortt's Bath Oliver crackers and Stilton to have with your beer.

[liuzhou]

2 minutes ago, Katie Meadow said:

Cat's Ears is a good name, though. Too bad if you were expecting Fortt's Bath Oliver crackers and Stilton to have with your beer.

 

Yes, but it's a bit off a rip-off here. There is a very well known type of pasta like ingredient (very similar to the Italian orechiette) known as 'cat ears' (猫耳朵 - māo ěr duo). It is usually made into a dish of the same name, particularly famous in East China, but known everywhere.

 

They are trying to cash in on that.

 

I prefer my Stilton with port. 🍷

 

 

[liuzhou]

Another day, another 6-pack, another ‘gift’.

 

My beer purveyor delivery today came complete with this 俄罗斯风味牛筋肠 (é luó sī fēng wèi niú jīn cháng), Russian-style beef tendon sausage.

 

 

I don’t know what the Russians are feeding their cattle but the ingredients list suggests they could be wiped out by bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or worse.

 

Ingredients list as translated by my cell phone.

 

Binned. The rats can have it. Them being wiped out suits me just fine.

 

 

[TdeV]

Bella Contadina. Lupins in brine. Made in Italy.

 

What do I do with them?

 

 

 

 

Edited July 25 by TdeV
Replaced internet image with my photo (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

52 minutes ago, TdeV said:

Bella Contadina. Lupins in brine. Made in Italy.

 

What do I do with them?

 

Like image below but in a jar. (Image stolen from internet)

 

 

Rinse them well if they haven't been cleared of neurotoxin.

 

 

[TdeV]

38 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Rinse them well if they haven't been cleared of neurotoxin.

 

My reading of the internet interprets that these lupin beans have been treated already. Do you imagine otherwise?

 

P.S. If the beans have been treated, the liquid in the jar should be salty brine.

 

Edited to add: the title on the jar is "Lupins in brine". The internet has provided recipes to remove the neurotoxin which results in the "cured" beans being stored in brine. I was thinking this indicates that the processing of the bean has already been done. Do you think this is an unsafe bet?

 

 

 

Edited July 25 by TdeV (log)

[TdeV]

I was wondering what to do with the beans. How does one prepare them? Eat them?