Text 8233, 120 rader
Skriven 2011-03-10 21:30:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av GLEN JAMIESON
Ärende: pacific ODDITIES 70
===========================
 GJ> I have had good reports from friends about Cambodia as a tourist
 GJ> destination.  Did you have much chance to explore the culinary and
 GJ> other attractions of the country while there?
 ML> Not much. I was keen on looking for fried spiders, but
 ML> that might have spooked my traveling companion. We made
 GJ> She should be un-spookable by now, if she has been travelling with you
 GJ> for a while.  The fried scorpions are supposed to be good.

If they taste anything like what they look like, I'd be
happy with that. As far as my association with Lilli goes,
she usually doesn't mind just so my breath can't be smelled
from a distance of a foot or so, so she tolerated with
amusement my recent adventures with black puddings, pig
feet, raw mussels, and veal kidneys. She did draw the line
at horse, because she used to keep them as sport animals:
when I proposed ordering an entrecote chevaline, she
grimaced a little and said that that would be all right,
but I knew that it wasn't really all right, and my Hilton
didn't have an executive lounge, but her Sheraton did,
and I wanted to have that lounge access, didn't I.

 ML> Thursday I get to investigate the offerings at Terminal 5.
 GJ> If everything is now working properly it should be good.  New
 GJ> terminals put on their best performance at the beginning.
 
European oddities. Terminal 5 was hellish to get to from
T3 - hundreds of lost people, British Airways personnel
shouting directions for them to queue up for buses that
stubbornly resisted showing up. Turns out it would have
taken half as long to have exited the secure area, found
a London Transport bus, taken it to the other terminal,
and gone through security again. To add indignity, even
our used business class tickets and Lilli's Emerald status
(roughly equivalent to my Star Alliance status but on
OneWorld and having better perks) got us only halfway to
the fast track (we were weeded out between passport check
and the onerous and superfluous security), owing to our
onward tickets being Euro Traveller (rather than Club
Europe). Be that as it may, we were admitted into the
the Galleries First Class lounge rather than the regular
one. The signal difference is that the former offers
free-pour Comtes de Champagne, while the latter has Lanson
on request only. Lanson is 90% as good and costs 75% less.

My breakfast was black pudding and bacon butty with
half a bottle of Comtes de Champagne, retail value
about what the London-Brussels leg cost in toto.
Lilli had some sort of eggs with a glass of Chateau
Lagrange (St.-Julien), which I found a pale imitation
of Gruaud-Larose and when looking it up later was
surprised to find that it costs 75% of what Gruaud does.

We had only an hour to soak up the atmosphere, which
was semi-posh but far better than mingling with
the vulgar plebs (a Latin word) and the base canaille
(and one that's French).

 -=> Glen Jamieson said to Hap Newsom <=-

 GJ> Instant noodles were considered to be the most important Japanese
 GJ> invention of the 20th century.  Their initial purpose was to feed the
 GJ> thousands of survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.  They were
 GJ> cheap to produce, easy to transport, and only needed a small amount of
 GJ> hot water to make a nutritious, life-saving meal.  And of course
 GJ> impecunious uni students have been surviving on them ever since.

Noodles may have saved the immediate postwar Japanese, but it
was only the inspiration of this hardship that spurred Taiwanese
immigrant Wu Pai-Fu (Wu Baifu, other names possible) to invent
instant noodles in the 1950s.

 GJ> During my wanderings, working in the Pacific, I found them very
 GJ> useful, as every tiny Chinese trade store has them permanently in
 GJ> stock.  Other universal food ingredients they hold are canned corned
 GJ> beef (usually "Ox and Palm" brand), canned Chinese "Spam", canned
 GJ> "roast pork" and the strongly flavoured canned "Mackerel Pike in
 GJ> Natural Oil", and of course, rice.

Here we can get canned eel and bangus with ease; regular mackerel
sometimes; not seen mackerel pike, or perhaps I've resisted looking.

---------- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.01

      Title: Chinese Cabbage Salad
 Categories: Salads, Chinese
      Yield: 12 servings

--------------------------------SALAD GREENS--------------------------------
      1    Head Chinese (Napa) Cabbage         1    Bunch Green Onions

-----------------------------DRESSING - STEP I-----------------------------
    1/2 c  Seasoned Rice Vinegar               3 tb  Sugar
    1/2 c  Sesame Oil

-----------------------------DRESSING - STEP II-----------------------------
      3 tb Sesame Oil                                pieces, discard seasoning
      3 tb Peanut Oil                        1/2 c  Sliced Almonds
      2 pk Ramen Noodles (uncooked)          1/2 c  Raw Sunflower Seeds
            broken into very small           1/3 c  Sesame Seeds

  Prepare greens by chopping up the Napa cabbage and the green onions.  You
  may use a coarse chop or shredd, depending on preference: coarser than most
  cole slaw but not "bite sized" pieces.

  Boil together the vinegar, 1/2 cup sesame oil, and sugar.

  In a frying pan, add the dressing ingredients listed in Step II and sauté
  until the Ramen noodles and sesame seeds are lightly browned.  Mix with the
  sweet oil and vinegar mixture and chill.

  Keep greens and dressing separate until ready to serve.  Toss dressing in
  with greens.  You may add cooked chicken if you like.

      Nancy H. Miller

  M's note: this actually isn't bad.

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