Text 7180, 104 rader
Skriven 2013-11-27 17:38:52 av Nancy Backus (1:261/1381.0)
   Kommentar till text 7076 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Re: asian things 501
============================
-=> Quoting MICHAEL LOO to NANCY BACKUS on 24 Nov 13  21:15:00 <=-

 NB>> And, speaking of sushi....  Fu has re-surfaced..  :)  Ran into him in
 ML> I thought he might, if he hadn't left town altogether.

Not too likely that he'd leave town, he has extended family here.
 
 NB>> Turns out he's been working on renovating Yang's Restaurant in the
 NB>> interim since Arigato closed for good...  We've exchanged phone numbers
 NB>> and now can stay in touch..  
 ML> Does this mean that Yang's will reappear and be the place to go?

He wasn't quite that specific, but that was the definite implication. 
C.T. is gone, and his wife to the point she isn't interested, but she
might well let him use the name, as well as the property...  He does
have plans for the menu, definitely sushi, and probably some other
cooking... but he didn't get into a lot of detail..

 NB>> Fancy-dancy ones, for sure...  Perhaps they are primarily in the
 NB>> touristy places...?
 ML> Mostly the affluent ones, perhaps, but I am not sure. I was only
 ML> in one private home in Asia since this boom period started,
 ML> and it had them, but I can say they're in most of the tourist
 ML> facilities, including the ones designed for native middle-class
 ML> tourists - and in fact the most elaborate one I saw was in a
 ML> public toilet in a midrange establishment; probably the presence
 ML> of this particular throne was meant to enhance the status and
 ML> reputation of the place.

No doubt...  :)

 ML> One strange thing: I haven't seen many toilet seat cleaners in
 ML> Asia lately, and they seem to be on the wane in Europe as well.
 ML> Used to be that a lot of German (for example, and others, too)
 ML> toilets had either cellulose covers that were automatically
 ML> changed after every use, using some clever contraption similar to
 ML> that in the cloth towel dispensers that gave you a loop of fresh
 ML> towel when you yanked on them; or else had an even more Rube
 ML> Goldbergish seat that rotated through a disinfecting device that
 ML> was built into the back of the unit. Then, perhaps in an effort
 ML> to cut costs, a lot of them everywhere came with little alcohol
 ML> sprayers where you could soak a piece of toilet paper and then
 ML> wipe down the seat to your liking. Now I guess that all the
 ML> foreigners have read the studies that say you don't get diseases
 ML> from toilet seats or something. But here in the US, toilet seat
 ML> cover dispensers are common in public places, and I for one, not
 ML> believing the studies, make full use of them.

I suppose I'm a bit more cavalier... having never had a problem with
getting diseases from toilet seats, I usually don't worry... ;)  In a
particularly filthy place I might lay out toilet tissue in the manner my
mother taught me, or use a toilet seat cover if available, but I usually
don't bother... 

 ML>> I've not recently read on the science of the B vitamins, but
 ML>> I think they're water-soluble. 
 NB>> They are, but dunno what percentage would be lost to the water from
 NB>> the rice... One doesn't lose all the water-soluble vitamins in veggies
 NB>> by boiling them in water... unless one cooks them to death, and then
 NB>> one might as well drink the cooking water as eat the veggies... ;)
 ML> I'm not sure. Maybe the nutrients are locked inside the
 ML> veggies' cell structure, whereas those in starches are
 ML> mostly on the surface.

Dunno...
 
 ML>> poor ate brown rice, and the outside layer has all the
 ML>> vitamins. The middle class showed their wealth by eating
 ML>> polished white rice. Of course the rich are always exempt.
 NB>> Yes, knew that.  :)  The rich can afford to eat a much wider variety
 NB>> of foods, thus making up to some extent for the lack of the rice
 NB>> husks... and if they wanted to eat brown rice, nobody would think of
 NB>> looking down on them...  ;)

 ML> Yes to the wide variety: instead of eating the savories as
 ML> an accent to the rice, which was the primary part of the meal,
 ML> the savories themselves were abundant and became the main event.

To the extent that at a feast, one wouldn't ask for rice, that casting
aspersions on the abundance proffered...  ;)

 ML> I believe that the notion to eat brown rice would not have
 ML> occurred to people in the upper classes until very recently,
 ML> like in our lifetime.

Quite possible.  I was thinking along the lines that the rich can afford
to be eccentric... there's usually a forward thinker or two before
things occur to the rest...

 NB>> Something like that...  (G)  My son used to say that the main reason
 NB>> he was working at Arigato was for having all the free sushi he
 NB>> wanted... ;) and for the home-made Korean dishes that Kim, his boss,
 NB>> would bring in for the workers... he ate more of her food than the
 NB>> asian employees did... :)

 ML> A good enough reason.

Seemed reasonable to me, too.  :)

ttyl        neb

... I am of the generation that is not scared of saturated fat.
--- Blue Wave/DOS v2.20
 * Origin: The Holodeck BBS  (1:261/1381)