An article in the BBC mentions that the Malaria virus is developing multi-drug resistance in parts of South East Asia, and there are worries that this might spread to Africa, where most of the world's Malaria cases occur. Malaria kills about half a million people per year.
Cite: "Malaria parasites resistant to key drugs have spread rapidly in South East Asia, researchers from the UK and Thailand say. The parasites have moved from Cambodia to Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, where half of patients are not being cured by first-choice drugs."
End cite.
SOURCE: Resistant malaria spreading - James Gallagher, BBC NEWS
Cite: ""This highly successful resistant parasite strain is capable of invading new territories and acquiring new genetic properties, raising the terrifying prospect that it could spread to Africa, where most malaria cases occur, as resistance to chloroquine did in the 1980s, contributing to millions of deaths," Prof Olivo Miotto, from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and University of Oxford, said."
End cite.
Well that's just ducky!
Even though here in the San Francisco Bay Area malaria is not an issue, mosquitoes can still be a problem. My apartment mate keeps a mosquito net around her bed because her skin and blood are appealing to the insects, whereas though I have mosquito nets of my own I have not deployed them in years.
She is Cantonese American and petite = Tasty.
I am Caucasian and smoke tobacco = Icky poo.
Because mosquitoes seldom bother me here in the North West sector of the city, and I'm a dab shot at clouting myself in the head to kill the little buggers, normally I don't worry about them. I just light up a stick of snow pear incense and chase them elsewhere. Which happens about four or five times a year.
But let us look at Mosquito Borne Ailments in the United States.
CHIKUNGUNYA
Horrible joint pain. Takes several weeks. Florida and spreading.
DENGUE
Also called break-bone fever. Florida, Puerto Rico, Texas. Spreading.
YELLOW FEVER
Tropical belt, not an issue in the United States.
EASTERN EQUINE ENCEPHALITIS (EE)
Humans, horses, other animals. Fevers, sometimes sudden intense fever. Headaches, sometimes severe enough to be excruciating. Possibly coma, seizures, and death. Possibly permanent brain damage. Charming. Swampland, Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.
ST. LOUIS ENCEPHALITIS (SLE)
Symptoms similar to Eastern Equine Encephalitis mentioned above. Occurs nationwide, more common along the Gulf Coast. Rare.
LACROSSE ENCEPHALITIS (LAC)
Infrequent, localized.
WESTERN EQUINE ENCEPHALITIS (WEE)
West of the Mississippi, from Canada to Mexico. Rare.
WEST NILE VIRUS (WNV)
Symptoms between mild and flu-like to seriously encephalitic. Nationwide. Rare in drier cooler zones, grossly under-reported.
ZIKA VIRUS
Fever, rash, joint pain, conjunctivitis. May not prompt a medical visit. Lasts for weeks. Looms on our Southern Border.
Many if not most of these diseases are spread by the Asian Tiger Mosquito (Aedes albopictus) and the Yellow Fever Mosquito (Aedes aegypti). Mosquito Season is year-round in San Francisco, peaking during "Indian Summer". West Nile, Zika, and Yellow Fever have not yet been found here, nor Malaria. West Nile and Zika are becoming worries in warmer parts of the Bay Area.
My advice, for what it's worth: Mosquito nets and White Flower Lotion (白花油 'pak faa yau') on wrists and ankles, if you are of Asian origin or have reasons to believe that you are tasty. Otherwise, use tobacco and snow pear incense (雪梨香 'suet lei heung'). Remove any sources of standing water, install fine mesh screens, and avoid marshy areas like Market Street, The Tenderloin, and Florida.
Burning spent tea leaves also works, I've heard.
Probably not recommended in drafty rooms.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
AVOID WALLED VILLAGES
From an article in the South China Morning Post: "Shortly before midnight, more than 200 people confronted the white-clad men at the entrance of nearby Nam Pin Wai village. Police reinforcements were then sent to the village to investigate. "
SOURCE: How marauding gang struck fear into Yuen Long, leaving pregnant woman and dozens of protesters injured, and Hong Kong police defending their response.
南邊圍
Nam Pin Wai
Unlike most of my readers, whom I presume to be calm phlegmatic types inclined to wait for all investigations and evidence eventually to allow a sober assessment, my emotional inclination at this point is to advocate burning Nam Pin Wai village down to the ground and salt the earth. Seeing as all evidence indicates that the walled village harboured the sons of bitches.
CITE: "Victims seen begging mob for mercy in harrowing video footage at MTR station"
CITE: "In a shockingly violent rampage of unprecedented lawlessness, a mob of men in white T-shirts stormed into the Yuen Long MTR station, indiscriminately attacking people with sticks and iron rods."
CITE: "the assailants beat up anyone they came across, including passengers on trains, passers-by and even journalists at the scene."
CITE: "Some were waving Chinese national flags and placards reading, “Defend Yuen Long, defend our homeland.”"
CITE: "Police later said more than 100 men were involved in the attack and a second one at midnight, including members of the notorious 14K and Wo Shing Wo triad gangs."
CITE: "Word of the imminent trouble on Sunday had spread earlier through Apple’s airdrop file transfer service and social media, warning protesters not to get off at Yuen Long station amid reports that a crowd of suspicious men had gathered near Fung Yau Street East."
CITE: "A message had been circulated the day before among closed circles, calling on Yuen Long residents not to wear black, the preferred colour of the protest movement. Villagers in the district also said they were reminded by their rural leaders not to venture out on Sunday if they could."
CITE: "“I saw a woman lying on the ground and some white-shirted people around her with their faces covered. Some of them were brandishing sticks and metal rods, some of them were not. She was the one later referred to as the injured pregnant woman online. Her condition was stable but she did not know the whereabouts of her husband, who was chased after and beaten.”"
CITE: "A team of 100 riot police officers went to Nam Pin Wai village, where most of the men in white shirts had gathered, at around 1am. But no arrests were made."
It's not unusual for an entire Clan Village to be complicit in criminal activity, there have been several such cases on the well-organized mainland, in hinterland Guangdong and Fujian.
Seeing as the police did not aprehend anybody until substantially later, and given that two local politicians may have had some prior knowledge of events before they transpired -- Arthur Shek (石鏡泉), and Junius Ho (何君堯) -- in addition to the "rural leaders" mentioned above, questions need to be asked. Pointedly.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
SOURCE: How marauding gang struck fear into Yuen Long, leaving pregnant woman and dozens of protesters injured, and Hong Kong police defending their response.
南邊圍
Nam Pin Wai
Unlike most of my readers, whom I presume to be calm phlegmatic types inclined to wait for all investigations and evidence eventually to allow a sober assessment, my emotional inclination at this point is to advocate burning Nam Pin Wai village down to the ground and salt the earth. Seeing as all evidence indicates that the walled village harboured the sons of bitches.
CITE: "Victims seen begging mob for mercy in harrowing video footage at MTR station"
CITE: "In a shockingly violent rampage of unprecedented lawlessness, a mob of men in white T-shirts stormed into the Yuen Long MTR station, indiscriminately attacking people with sticks and iron rods."
CITE: "the assailants beat up anyone they came across, including passengers on trains, passers-by and even journalists at the scene."
CITE: "Some were waving Chinese national flags and placards reading, “Defend Yuen Long, defend our homeland.”"
CITE: "Police later said more than 100 men were involved in the attack and a second one at midnight, including members of the notorious 14K and Wo Shing Wo triad gangs."
CITE: "Word of the imminent trouble on Sunday had spread earlier through Apple’s airdrop file transfer service and social media, warning protesters not to get off at Yuen Long station amid reports that a crowd of suspicious men had gathered near Fung Yau Street East."
CITE: "A message had been circulated the day before among closed circles, calling on Yuen Long residents not to wear black, the preferred colour of the protest movement. Villagers in the district also said they were reminded by their rural leaders not to venture out on Sunday if they could."
CITE: "“I saw a woman lying on the ground and some white-shirted people around her with their faces covered. Some of them were brandishing sticks and metal rods, some of them were not. She was the one later referred to as the injured pregnant woman online. Her condition was stable but she did not know the whereabouts of her husband, who was chased after and beaten.”"
CITE: "A team of 100 riot police officers went to Nam Pin Wai village, where most of the men in white shirts had gathered, at around 1am. But no arrests were made."
Entrance to Nam Pin Wai -- Wikipedia - Yuen Long Kau Hui
Chong Fat - Own work 南邊圍門樓
It's not unusual for an entire Clan Village to be complicit in criminal activity, there have been several such cases on the well-organized mainland, in hinterland Guangdong and Fujian.
Seeing as the police did not aprehend anybody until substantially later, and given that two local politicians may have had some prior knowledge of events before they transpired -- Arthur Shek (石鏡泉), and Junius Ho (何君堯) -- in addition to the "rural leaders" mentioned above, questions need to be asked. Pointedly.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, July 22, 2019
BANANANANANANANA!
Intellectually, this blogger does not quite know what to make of banana bread. It was not a factor in my childhood, and even if someone had brought up the concept, it would have found no takers. I suppose it already existed, in California, but not in a severe and disapproving Europe.
In any case not in our neck of the old sod.
It is quite delicious.
Our downstairs neighbor (who also happens to be our landlady) just gave us some.
I few years ago I made cooked brown sugar bananas in philo pastry, drizzled with little bits of chocolate and dusted with confectioners' sugar. That didn't even last a day. I also used to make banana ketchup, which tended to disappear faster than I wanted to make it. I've rather neglected the kitchen these past several years, as other things intervened.
Still. Cooking with bananas. Not quite my ticket. I doubt that I could make a banana bread even half as delicious.
Pisang goreng, a cup of Dutch coffee.
Good way to start the day.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
In any case not in our neck of the old sod.
It is quite delicious.
Our downstairs neighbor (who also happens to be our landlady) just gave us some.
I few years ago I made cooked brown sugar bananas in philo pastry, drizzled with little bits of chocolate and dusted with confectioners' sugar. That didn't even last a day. I also used to make banana ketchup, which tended to disappear faster than I wanted to make it. I've rather neglected the kitchen these past several years, as other things intervened.
Still. Cooking with bananas. Not quite my ticket. I doubt that I could make a banana bread even half as delicious.
Pisang goreng, a cup of Dutch coffee.
Good way to start the day.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
JUNIUS
One person of interest, who should probably be kept from ever leaving Hong Kong, is Junius Ho Kwan-yiu, a legislator who appears to have exceedingly comfortable relations with the triad gangsters in his district, and has at times advocated violence and murder.
何君堯
But he is, like many politicians, an upstanding fellow. Educated, a lawyer, and involved with youth, charities, and local affairs. What you would call an exemplary citizen who has nevertheless not forsaken his roots or ignored his community.
More than 45 people were hospitalized on Sunday night after his supporters trashed transit stations and brutally attacked people with iron bars.
Which, everyone surely agrees, is valid political speech.
UPDATE as of Tuesday 23, 2019, 11:50 AM: Junius Ho's parents graves have been vandalized. This is absolutely not cricket. It can in no way be justified, and is something despots and gangsters would do. Despicable!
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
何君堯
But he is, like many politicians, an upstanding fellow. Educated, a lawyer, and involved with youth, charities, and local affairs. What you would call an exemplary citizen who has nevertheless not forsaken his roots or ignored his community.
More than 45 people were hospitalized on Sunday night after his supporters trashed transit stations and brutally attacked people with iron bars.
Which, everyone surely agrees, is valid political speech.
UPDATE as of Tuesday 23, 2019, 11:50 AM: Junius Ho's parents graves have been vandalized. This is absolutely not cricket. It can in no way be justified, and is something despots and gangsters would do. Despicable!
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
YUEN LONG: A WORD TO BE HISSED
Yesterday Carrie Lam, gauleiter of the Special Administrative Region, showed herself a keen student of history, by her use of anonymous goons to attack protesters. And it's likely that the Triads she hired to prove a greater need for law and order and a firmer hand will find themselves screwed.
Probably the next step is bodies floating in the harbour.
As well as too much plausible deniability to be believed.
元朗
It is likely that next weekend, the village of Yuen Long where the gang attack took place, may be a scene of confrontation. By that time the authorities will have made considerable progress in not making any attempt whatsoever in tracking down the white tee-shirted criminals, and sales of iron bars will have gone through the roof.
And, if the white tee-shirt crowd pull off another brutal assault on protesters, there will be prosperity all around. And that is what it's really all about.
Poon choi (盤菜) and thugs.
Trickle-down.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Probably the next step is bodies floating in the harbour.
As well as too much plausible deniability to be believed.
元朗
It is likely that next weekend, the village of Yuen Long where the gang attack took place, may be a scene of confrontation. By that time the authorities will have made considerable progress in not making any attempt whatsoever in tracking down the white tee-shirted criminals, and sales of iron bars will have gone through the roof.
And, if the white tee-shirt crowd pull off another brutal assault on protesters, there will be prosperity all around. And that is what it's really all about.
Poon choi (盤菜) and thugs.
Trickle-down.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, July 21, 2019
INDO TASTES - MEMORY, FRAGRANCE, AND THINGS THAT BITE
A very good friend pointed me in the direction of an Anglo Indian recipe forum on social media, which has proven fascinating, not only because of the food posts, but also the flashes of personality, life style, and socio-cultural environment that glimmer through. I feel like I'm observing a remarkable culture, and it's evident that a number of other readers have similar perceptions.
Anglo Indians are people whose family make-up, history, and origins, sprung from India during the British period. Not necessarily the mixture of English and Indian. Some of them have surnames that point at Portuguese or Dutch ancestors, others are more strictly Indian, and some are English or English plus.
At present time, they live all around the globe.
I myself am not Anglo Indian. Actually of Dutch American ancestry (yes, some Anglo in the woodpile), we moved to Holland when I was an infant, and I came back to the States by myself when I was college age. My culinary data-sets at that point included beer, fried foods, Dutch Indies style cooking and condiments, and a smattering of other things, mostly rather French influenced, some English. No actual "Dutch American food", though I believe apple pie, donuts, and cookies, qualify as such.
No American food; my mother's meatloaf recipe (awful) and spaghetti (good) are in the final count, not really significant, except that I very rarely have meatloaf or spaghetti nowadays. That, plus 'chili beans', and Turkey, were the extent of my North American culinaria.
Pizza, fettuccine, hamburgers, Philly cheese steaks, cioppino, tuna salad.
The unmitigated horror of the chili cheese dog.
With onions and pickles.
Ketchup.
Sorry, not to sound snarky or anything, but if you put bacon, cheddar, and chopped pickled Jalapeños on top, almost anything tastes American.
Add a side of ranch dressing.
THE INDO LARDER
Netherlands Indies taste utilizes a number of things or concepts that aren't, strictly speaking, common in the American kitchen or restaurant. Many Dutch people have Indonesian connections in their family trees and family histories, both Prime Minster Mark Rutte and former Foreign Minister Koenders as examples have such links. But there isn't even a close overlap with family backgrounds and culinary tastes anymore, as many folks without a drop of Indies blood will have Indo Dutch ingredients and foods in their kitchen, while many people of Dutch Indo descent are somewhat unfamiliar with a number of these things entirely; 'yeah man, gotta ask my auntie 'bout all that stuff'.
As a rough set of basics, the larder often contains at least Atjar, Ketjap Manis, Sambal, Serundeng, Trassi or Blatjang, and a bag of shrimp chips (krupuk). Plus the makings of peanut sauce (sate saus, bumbu katjang), necessary curry spices, plus Chinese bottled sauces.
A nice red sambal goes with both fish and fried foods.
You should always have some on hand.
ALL THAT STUFF
ASAM
Sour. Asam djawa is tamarind, used as a cooking ingredient, sometimes mashed and cooked as a dip on the side. Asam gelugur is garcinia atroviridis, added as a souring agent, and often sold as dried slices (asam keping).
ATJAR
Pickles. Not dill chips or cornichons, but somewhat more like the Indian achaar, strong flavoured and meant to keep in a Tropic environment. Salt, vinegar, oil, spices. The most common version is atjar tjampur, mixed chopped vegetables jazzed up with salt, vinegar, oil.
BAWANG GORENG
Fried onion chips, used as a garnish on top of prepared dishes. Some people nowadays use crumbled potato chips instead.
BLATJANG
Fermented anchovies or shrimp, semi-liquid in form, and stinky-savoury. An ingredient in cooked dishes, also used with tomatoes or green mangoes as a table condiment.
DJERUK PURUT
Kaffir lime, most often used for the leaves -- daun djeruk purut -- the released oils of which add both fragrance and mouthfeel to dishes.
It is usually removed before serving.
DJINTAN
Usually Cumin seed (bidji djintan) or powder, although sometimes caraway and fennel are referred to as djintan also. Linguistic usages here are variable.
EBI
Dried shrimp, common to many South East Asian cuisines. You could soak them in garlic paste, lime juice, and hot sauce, then low-fry till crispy again.
GULA; GULA DJAWA, GULA AREN
Palm sugar, produced similarly to maple sugar. Crumbly, sometimes hard. Not essential, but often a beloved ingredient. Long resettled Indos will, in the absence of gula djawa ("Javanese sugar"), make do with golden sugar or coarse Chinese cake sugar (紅糖 and 冰片糖) instead.
HALIA (DJAHE)
Used fresh and dried. Self-explanatory.
KATJANG TANAH
Peanuts. Roasted and salted or spiced, as a snack or strewn on top. Or roasted and ground, cooked with onions, chilies, tamarind or lime, and spices, etcetera. When it has become a sauce, it is poured over barbecued items and salads, or, in the Netherlands, French Fries. The native Dutch versions are not very good.
KELAPA PARUT
Grated coconut. Soaked and squooze, it yields coconut milk for cooking. Carefully pan-toasted, it can be added to many dishes for a textural effect.
KELUWAK
Pangium edule nuts, which after considerable processing are a safe ingredient in black stews, often containing beef, chicken, even pork.
KEMIRI
Candlenuts. Toasted and ground up as a flavour addition, but also because they help keep sauces emulsified.
KETUMBAR
Coriander seed (bidji ketumbar) and leaf (daun ketumbar), frequently used in the same dish. The term is derived from a Dravidian language, and related to 'kotumir' as well as 'kachumber'.
KETJAP ASIN
Salty soy sauce, used in cooking. Especially Javan and Chinese.
KETJAP MANIS
Sweet soy sauce, available in every Dutch supermarket. Likewise used in cooking, but also drizzled over grilled foods, and absolutely one of the top inclusions in your cupboard.
KUNYIT
Turmeric.
LENGKUWAS
Galangal. Dwarf ginger.
LIMAU, LIMAU HIJAU
Lime types. A squeeze of juice is often added to fried or grilled food. Philippine calamansi is known as 'limau kasturi' or in some areas 'kalamunting'. The common Indonesian term for limes and other citrus fruits is 'djeruk'.
PANDAN
Fragrant screwpine. Daun pandan is often used as an extract in sweets, pastries, pudding.
PETIS
Stroppy Javanese fermented krill. But also confusingly used for Thai and Vietnamese fish sauces used condimentally.
SAMBAL
Probably the defining ingredient; chili paste, "plus". Plus onions, oil, and kemiri, fried into sambal badjak. Plus stinky fish paste and perhaps lime juice; sambal trassi. Plus fried onions; sambal bawang goreng. Plus tomato and garlic, cooked but still wet; sambal tomat. Plus a main ingredient and fried and sauced together; sambal goreng, a spicy side, of which there are innumerable kinds.
SANTAN
Coconut milk used for cooking. Often with stock and water added.
SERAI
Lemon grass; a major flavouring ingredient, which is often removed after simmering.
SERUNDENG
Toasted flavoured rasped coconut and peanuts, or almonds or other nuts, or seaweed substituted for one of the ingredients. The most common version is approximately one third peanuts two thirds rasped coconut, with a little palm sugar, ground coriander, and fish paste, dash tamarind water, slowly pan-toasted till brown and dry. Added on top of curry and rice it's wonderful, and the perfect taste of home. Make extra. It keeps.
TEMU KUNTJI
Finger root, Chinese keys. A relative of ginger used a lot in Javanese cooking, but also medicinally, which means that when American hippies finally discover it the price will go up along with all kinds of attestations about a mystic mysterious magic super ingredient.
TJABAI
Chilies. Essential. Among other things, no sambal without these.
TRASSI
Stinky purple brown fish or shrimp paste, pressed into a brick. Great as an ingredient, but if you cook a lot with this, your kitchen may smell like a South East Asian slum. You could just wrap the entire brick in aluminum foil and grill it at low temperature in the oven, then let it cool and coarsely grind it. Trassi bakar.
PLEASE HAVE SOMETHING TO EAT
Now then, a few nice Indonesian Restaurants: Have some peanuts with that!
Plus a selection of Indonesian dishes, and some eateries in Amsterdam: Do you want rice with that?
As for recipes, oh heck, they're all over this blog. Not all of them by any means are Indo, but sambal, fish sauce, and lime juice go with almost anything here. Even boeuf Bourguignonne. And Frites.
That sambal goes well with Chinese food or Chinatown chachanteng dishes, is, naturally, vanzelfsprekend.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Anglo Indians are people whose family make-up, history, and origins, sprung from India during the British period. Not necessarily the mixture of English and Indian. Some of them have surnames that point at Portuguese or Dutch ancestors, others are more strictly Indian, and some are English or English plus.
At present time, they live all around the globe.
I myself am not Anglo Indian. Actually of Dutch American ancestry (yes, some Anglo in the woodpile), we moved to Holland when I was an infant, and I came back to the States by myself when I was college age. My culinary data-sets at that point included beer, fried foods, Dutch Indies style cooking and condiments, and a smattering of other things, mostly rather French influenced, some English. No actual "Dutch American food", though I believe apple pie, donuts, and cookies, qualify as such.
No American food; my mother's meatloaf recipe (awful) and spaghetti (good) are in the final count, not really significant, except that I very rarely have meatloaf or spaghetti nowadays. That, plus 'chili beans', and Turkey, were the extent of my North American culinaria.
Pizza, fettuccine, hamburgers, Philly cheese steaks, cioppino, tuna salad.
The unmitigated horror of the chili cheese dog.
With onions and pickles.
Ketchup.
Sorry, not to sound snarky or anything, but if you put bacon, cheddar, and chopped pickled Jalapeños on top, almost anything tastes American.
Add a side of ranch dressing.
THE INDO LARDER
Netherlands Indies taste utilizes a number of things or concepts that aren't, strictly speaking, common in the American kitchen or restaurant. Many Dutch people have Indonesian connections in their family trees and family histories, both Prime Minster Mark Rutte and former Foreign Minister Koenders as examples have such links. But there isn't even a close overlap with family backgrounds and culinary tastes anymore, as many folks without a drop of Indies blood will have Indo Dutch ingredients and foods in their kitchen, while many people of Dutch Indo descent are somewhat unfamiliar with a number of these things entirely; 'yeah man, gotta ask my auntie 'bout all that stuff'.
As a rough set of basics, the larder often contains at least Atjar, Ketjap Manis, Sambal, Serundeng, Trassi or Blatjang, and a bag of shrimp chips (krupuk). Plus the makings of peanut sauce (sate saus, bumbu katjang), necessary curry spices, plus Chinese bottled sauces.
A nice red sambal goes with both fish and fried foods.
You should always have some on hand.
ALL THAT STUFF
ASAM
Sour. Asam djawa is tamarind, used as a cooking ingredient, sometimes mashed and cooked as a dip on the side. Asam gelugur is garcinia atroviridis, added as a souring agent, and often sold as dried slices (asam keping).
ATJAR
Pickles. Not dill chips or cornichons, but somewhat more like the Indian achaar, strong flavoured and meant to keep in a Tropic environment. Salt, vinegar, oil, spices. The most common version is atjar tjampur, mixed chopped vegetables jazzed up with salt, vinegar, oil.
BAWANG GORENG
Fried onion chips, used as a garnish on top of prepared dishes. Some people nowadays use crumbled potato chips instead.
BLATJANG
Fermented anchovies or shrimp, semi-liquid in form, and stinky-savoury. An ingredient in cooked dishes, also used with tomatoes or green mangoes as a table condiment.
DJERUK PURUT
Kaffir lime, most often used for the leaves -- daun djeruk purut -- the released oils of which add both fragrance and mouthfeel to dishes.
It is usually removed before serving.
DJINTAN
Usually Cumin seed (bidji djintan) or powder, although sometimes caraway and fennel are referred to as djintan also. Linguistic usages here are variable.
EBI
Dried shrimp, common to many South East Asian cuisines. You could soak them in garlic paste, lime juice, and hot sauce, then low-fry till crispy again.
GULA; GULA DJAWA, GULA AREN
Palm sugar, produced similarly to maple sugar. Crumbly, sometimes hard. Not essential, but often a beloved ingredient. Long resettled Indos will, in the absence of gula djawa ("Javanese sugar"), make do with golden sugar or coarse Chinese cake sugar (紅糖 and 冰片糖) instead.
HALIA (DJAHE)
Used fresh and dried. Self-explanatory.
KATJANG TANAH
Peanuts. Roasted and salted or spiced, as a snack or strewn on top. Or roasted and ground, cooked with onions, chilies, tamarind or lime, and spices, etcetera. When it has become a sauce, it is poured over barbecued items and salads, or, in the Netherlands, French Fries. The native Dutch versions are not very good.
KELAPA PARUT
Grated coconut. Soaked and squooze, it yields coconut milk for cooking. Carefully pan-toasted, it can be added to many dishes for a textural effect.
KELUWAK
Pangium edule nuts, which after considerable processing are a safe ingredient in black stews, often containing beef, chicken, even pork.
KEMIRI
Candlenuts. Toasted and ground up as a flavour addition, but also because they help keep sauces emulsified.
KETUMBAR
Coriander seed (bidji ketumbar) and leaf (daun ketumbar), frequently used in the same dish. The term is derived from a Dravidian language, and related to 'kotumir' as well as 'kachumber'.
KETJAP ASIN
Salty soy sauce, used in cooking. Especially Javan and Chinese.
KETJAP MANIS
Sweet soy sauce, available in every Dutch supermarket. Likewise used in cooking, but also drizzled over grilled foods, and absolutely one of the top inclusions in your cupboard.
KUNYIT
Turmeric.
LENGKUWAS
Galangal. Dwarf ginger.
LIMAU, LIMAU HIJAU
Lime types. A squeeze of juice is often added to fried or grilled food. Philippine calamansi is known as 'limau kasturi' or in some areas 'kalamunting'. The common Indonesian term for limes and other citrus fruits is 'djeruk'.
PANDAN
Fragrant screwpine. Daun pandan is often used as an extract in sweets, pastries, pudding.
PETIS
Stroppy Javanese fermented krill. But also confusingly used for Thai and Vietnamese fish sauces used condimentally.
SAMBAL
Probably the defining ingredient; chili paste, "plus". Plus onions, oil, and kemiri, fried into sambal badjak. Plus stinky fish paste and perhaps lime juice; sambal trassi. Plus fried onions; sambal bawang goreng. Plus tomato and garlic, cooked but still wet; sambal tomat. Plus a main ingredient and fried and sauced together; sambal goreng, a spicy side, of which there are innumerable kinds.
SANTAN
Coconut milk used for cooking. Often with stock and water added.
SERAI
Lemon grass; a major flavouring ingredient, which is often removed after simmering.
SERUNDENG
Toasted flavoured rasped coconut and peanuts, or almonds or other nuts, or seaweed substituted for one of the ingredients. The most common version is approximately one third peanuts two thirds rasped coconut, with a little palm sugar, ground coriander, and fish paste, dash tamarind water, slowly pan-toasted till brown and dry. Added on top of curry and rice it's wonderful, and the perfect taste of home. Make extra. It keeps.
TEMU KUNTJI
Finger root, Chinese keys. A relative of ginger used a lot in Javanese cooking, but also medicinally, which means that when American hippies finally discover it the price will go up along with all kinds of attestations about a mystic mysterious magic super ingredient.
TJABAI
Chilies. Essential. Among other things, no sambal without these.
TRASSI
Stinky purple brown fish or shrimp paste, pressed into a brick. Great as an ingredient, but if you cook a lot with this, your kitchen may smell like a South East Asian slum. You could just wrap the entire brick in aluminum foil and grill it at low temperature in the oven, then let it cool and coarsely grind it. Trassi bakar.
PLEASE HAVE SOMETHING TO EAT
Now then, a few nice Indonesian Restaurants: Have some peanuts with that!
Plus a selection of Indonesian dishes, and some eateries in Amsterdam: Do you want rice with that?
As for recipes, oh heck, they're all over this blog. Not all of them by any means are Indo, but sambal, fish sauce, and lime juice go with almost anything here. Even boeuf Bourguignonne. And Frites.
That sambal goes well with Chinese food or Chinatown chachanteng dishes, is, naturally, vanzelfsprekend.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
LIMP AND BAGGY
Being still a little wankel on the pins, due to a recent situation involving my appendix and stupidly waiting too long get help (increasing agony, for a day and a half, because I should have admitted to myself FAR earlier that there was no way I'd be opening up on Sunday), dinner last night was a bit on the simple side.
But much tastier than anything the Hospital could offer, despite their good intentions.
[At slightly after four A.M. last Sunday Morning the taxi dropped me off at the Emergency Room (急診室 'gap chan sat'). My apartment mate grabbed me a wheelchair. Admission was fast, within minutes I was on a gurney, and after seeing my white bloodcell levels and checking a few other things, they had rescheduled me for first whirl on the table at six rather than second, their original plan. Woke up a few hours later, feeling "refreshed". And drained. And limp. Basically, like lightheaded crap.]
See, hospitals are not set up to cater to Dutch American codgers who tend toward curry flavours and everything with hot sauce. Sadly, it's not a significant patient demographic. Not even at Chinese Hospital, which is the nearest medical establishment with a culturally understanding staff.
I always feel like I'm family when I'm there.
Which is VERY important.
They tried. They were bound to fail. For most of last week I just didn't have any appetite. And I still don't. Appendectomies sometimes have that effect. But the intellectual conceit of white cut chicken (白切雞 'paak chit kai') served in mild curry noodle soup with tender vegetables appealed to me. And my apartment mate had picked the chicken up in Chinatown.
The soup was simply stock and a ready made mild curry paste, some citrus and keffir (in lieu of coconut milk) stirred in, with a brisk dash of hot sauce. And a touch of shrimp paste.
Rice noodles; still not feeling like wheat.
No actual sliced chilies yet.
I'm not foolhardy.
GONNA HAVE TO BUY SOME TEA BAGS
A nice satisfying pipe with a Virginia blend afterwards may need another week. Likewise anything more stressful than rice or rice noodles. Similarly, milk tea is right out (heck, even one cup of coffee is too much), and fried foods, as well as crispy crunchy fresh chilies, will have to wait for two or three weeks.
One of the nurses treating me highly recommended Rickshaw brand teabags (車仔紅茶包 'che jai hung chaa baau') as really very good if you make milk tea at home, but also insisted that one should use sweetened condensed milk (煉奶 'lin naai') instead of evaporated. I am very keen to try it soon.
Yeah, not opening up this Sunday morning either.
Still as limp as canned asparagus.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
But much tastier than anything the Hospital could offer, despite their good intentions.
[At slightly after four A.M. last Sunday Morning the taxi dropped me off at the Emergency Room (急診室 'gap chan sat'). My apartment mate grabbed me a wheelchair. Admission was fast, within minutes I was on a gurney, and after seeing my white bloodcell levels and checking a few other things, they had rescheduled me for first whirl on the table at six rather than second, their original plan. Woke up a few hours later, feeling "refreshed". And drained. And limp. Basically, like lightheaded crap.]
See, hospitals are not set up to cater to Dutch American codgers who tend toward curry flavours and everything with hot sauce. Sadly, it's not a significant patient demographic. Not even at Chinese Hospital, which is the nearest medical establishment with a culturally understanding staff.
I always feel like I'm family when I'm there.
Which is VERY important.
They tried. They were bound to fail. For most of last week I just didn't have any appetite. And I still don't. Appendectomies sometimes have that effect. But the intellectual conceit of white cut chicken (白切雞 'paak chit kai') served in mild curry noodle soup with tender vegetables appealed to me. And my apartment mate had picked the chicken up in Chinatown.
The soup was simply stock and a ready made mild curry paste, some citrus and keffir (in lieu of coconut milk) stirred in, with a brisk dash of hot sauce. And a touch of shrimp paste.
Rice noodles; still not feeling like wheat.
No actual sliced chilies yet.
I'm not foolhardy.
GONNA HAVE TO BUY SOME TEA BAGS
A nice satisfying pipe with a Virginia blend afterwards may need another week. Likewise anything more stressful than rice or rice noodles. Similarly, milk tea is right out (heck, even one cup of coffee is too much), and fried foods, as well as crispy crunchy fresh chilies, will have to wait for two or three weeks.
One of the nurses treating me highly recommended Rickshaw brand teabags (車仔紅茶包 'che jai hung chaa baau') as really very good if you make milk tea at home, but also insisted that one should use sweetened condensed milk (煉奶 'lin naai') instead of evaporated. I am very keen to try it soon.
Yeah, not opening up this Sunday morning either.
Still as limp as canned asparagus.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, July 20, 2019
LYRICAL, ELOQUENT, BYRONESQUE
If you have to change your surgical dressings, which are on your abdomen, it is, generally speaking, a good thing when you can curse in a language no one else in your building understands. Dutch? No, the elderly Indonesian lady in the front apartment speaks that. Indonesian is out for the same reason, and any variation of Chinese is out of the question too; there are six people who are ethnically Chinese in the apartment building. German and Yiddish share too many characteristics with Dutch for comfort, and I'm not sure but there may be a Philippino somewhere here as well.
And there was a Lebanese once.
Fortunately there's always Hindustani; the foulest language on earth.
It takes an hour, and will leave you exhausted.
Traumatized muscle groups.
The process is simple. Go into the bathroom, and after performing more rigorous personal ablutions than were possible at the hospital, sit on the edge of the tub/shower facility with scissors, cotton bandage material, paper towels, and a bottle of whiskey on the crapper seat in front of you.
The same whiskey you use to deep-clean briar smoking pipes is fine, no need to go out and buy another bottle.
[Whiskey = Disinfectant.]
Splash some on whiskey a paper towel, and carefully swab all around the wounds. Then dab with another paper towel to dry, and tape twice folded-over cotton bandage material over the wounds, making sure at least an inch all around the incisions are covered and protected.
It's good exercise, I recommend it.
Everything from 'bhain' (sister, but used "creatively") to 'zad', as in 'haram zada', one of Narendra Damodardas Modi's affectionate nicknames. Bakri (goat) and ulu da putara (son of an owl) also came into play. Soors, dalals, and churails.
Plus gandha jaraja, a fortuitous combo of Hindi and Bengali.
Cursing can be VERY comforting.
If anybody had heard me, they probably wondered at the onesidedness of the conversation. If they had come in, they would have looked at the naked goat and seen the whiskey bottle, and thought: "poor old dingus has finally gone off the deep end; we knew he would, eventually."
Oh, I also trimmed my beard. So when dressed I actually look quite presentable.
Not naked, though. Not with abdominal blotchiness, unnaturally smooth areas, traces of flexible tape glue, oedema, and post-operative bruising.
Bacchanalian dancing is out of the question.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Fortunately there's always Hindustani; the foulest language on earth.
It takes an hour, and will leave you exhausted.
Traumatized muscle groups.
The process is simple. Go into the bathroom, and after performing more rigorous personal ablutions than were possible at the hospital, sit on the edge of the tub/shower facility with scissors, cotton bandage material, paper towels, and a bottle of whiskey on the crapper seat in front of you.
The same whiskey you use to deep-clean briar smoking pipes is fine, no need to go out and buy another bottle.
[Whiskey = Disinfectant.]
Splash some on whiskey a paper towel, and carefully swab all around the wounds. Then dab with another paper towel to dry, and tape twice folded-over cotton bandage material over the wounds, making sure at least an inch all around the incisions are covered and protected.
It's good exercise, I recommend it.
Everything from 'bhain' (sister, but used "creatively") to 'zad', as in 'haram zada', one of Narendra Damodardas Modi's affectionate nicknames. Bakri (goat) and ulu da putara (son of an owl) also came into play. Soors, dalals, and churails.
Plus gandha jaraja, a fortuitous combo of Hindi and Bengali.
Cursing can be VERY comforting.
If anybody had heard me, they probably wondered at the onesidedness of the conversation. If they had come in, they would have looked at the naked goat and seen the whiskey bottle, and thought: "poor old dingus has finally gone off the deep end; we knew he would, eventually."
Oh, I also trimmed my beard. So when dressed I actually look quite presentable.
Not naked, though. Not with abdominal blotchiness, unnaturally smooth areas, traces of flexible tape glue, oedema, and post-operative bruising.
Bacchanalian dancing is out of the question.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, July 19, 2019
GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM
When I was a child someone told me to go back where I came from, that I did not belong, and people like me should not have a voice. He was of course a fine upstanding Christian with good conservative values. In the last several years before I left Holland and returned to the United States, that happened a few more times. It happened again within months of coming back to The States, and has happened several score of times since then.
Almost always fine upstanding Christians with good conservative values.
Apparently I do not belong in their universe.
Well, whatever.
I am the descendant of people who landed on these shores in 1630. Both parents served in World War Two. Both grandfathers fought on our side in World War One. I was born in the United States. My parents were U.S. citizens, by birth.
But, um, I have an accent.
In both Dutch and English I sound kind of snooty. It's what you might call a Den Haag twang, softly mellowed by the Flemish 'g'. It gets worse around Saint Patrick's Day, when it irritates the spit out of fifth and sixth generation pillocks. Yeah, don't know how that happens, honestly, no idea!
If you have the papers that show that you are legally here, then for legal purposes you are where you belong. If you're a congress woman, you belong in congress, irritating the spit out of entitled pillocks.
Suggesting that someone should go back where they belong, for several reasons, is one of the most offensive things to my ear. I don't know why, maybe it's because the people who say it are always such scoundrels, or maybe it's because they're horrid pillocks. Whatever it is, I hope their businesses fail, their cattle get the murrain, their children are caught with their hands in the cookie jar, their barn burns down, their wife catches the clap, and their sons accidentally shoot their willies off while hunting.
Mabaho tulad ng mga 'elderberries'!
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Almost always fine upstanding Christians with good conservative values.
Apparently I do not belong in their universe.
Well, whatever.
I am the descendant of people who landed on these shores in 1630. Both parents served in World War Two. Both grandfathers fought on our side in World War One. I was born in the United States. My parents were U.S. citizens, by birth.
But, um, I have an accent.
In both Dutch and English I sound kind of snooty. It's what you might call a Den Haag twang, softly mellowed by the Flemish 'g'. It gets worse around Saint Patrick's Day, when it irritates the spit out of fifth and sixth generation pillocks. Yeah, don't know how that happens, honestly, no idea!
If you have the papers that show that you are legally here, then for legal purposes you are where you belong. If you're a congress woman, you belong in congress, irritating the spit out of entitled pillocks.
Suggesting that someone should go back where they belong, for several reasons, is one of the most offensive things to my ear. I don't know why, maybe it's because the people who say it are always such scoundrels, or maybe it's because they're horrid pillocks. Whatever it is, I hope their businesses fail, their cattle get the murrain, their children are caught with their hands in the cookie jar, their barn burns down, their wife catches the clap, and their sons accidentally shoot their willies off while hunting.
Mabaho tulad ng mga 'elderberries'!
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, July 18, 2019
A ONCE IN A LIFETIME EXPERIENCE
Appendicitis: 急性闌尾炎 ('kap sing laan mei yim'). Appendectomy: 闌尾切除術 ('laan mei chit cheui seut').
Live In Hong Kong: 香港直播 ('heung kong jik po').
Now that I've had appendicitis, I doubt that I'll do that again. It's absolutely no exaggeration when I say that the last five days have been very educational. Not only about screaming agony -- which I resisted acting appropriately upon, because howling like wolf chewing off it's leg to get away from the steel jawed trap is just plain undignified -- but also about what may be the best news programme on four wheels: 香港直播. And about Doctor Poon's bizarre obsession with post-operative laxation.
Doctor Poon (not her real name) lectured me sternly, uncaring how embarrassing the results might be. And prescribed for stool.
Even though she also wanted me to get up and walk.
My, this is a lovely ward filled with sick old people you have here, it's so nice and clean! It would be a shame if something horrible were to happen to it, huh?
I should have emphasized that a bit more. Three times more.
Some of the most patient nursing staff in history.
They were extraordinarily tolerant
Important concepts: 腹膜炎，敗血症，糞石。
Peritonitis ('fuk mou yim'), Sepsis ('paai huet jing'), Fecalith ('fan sek').
Of course, it probably helped that I tried limiting mishaps to the bed, the bathroom, the area in front of my room, and the area in between.
I am iron-willed, and have a carbon-steel arse.
Could rip a leg off a wolf with that.
I've spent nearly a week in agony, that wolf better run for its life.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Live In Hong Kong: 香港直播 ('heung kong jik po').
Now that I've had appendicitis, I doubt that I'll do that again. It's absolutely no exaggeration when I say that the last five days have been very educational. Not only about screaming agony -- which I resisted acting appropriately upon, because howling like wolf chewing off it's leg to get away from the steel jawed trap is just plain undignified -- but also about what may be the best news programme on four wheels: 香港直播. And about Doctor Poon's bizarre obsession with post-operative laxation.
Doctor Poon (not her real name) lectured me sternly, uncaring how embarrassing the results might be. And prescribed for stool.
Even though she also wanted me to get up and walk.
My, this is a lovely ward filled with sick old people you have here, it's so nice and clean! It would be a shame if something horrible were to happen to it, huh?
I should have emphasized that a bit more. Three times more.
Some of the most patient nursing staff in history.
They were extraordinarily tolerant
Important concepts: 腹膜炎，敗血症，糞石。
Peritonitis ('fuk mou yim'), Sepsis ('paai huet jing'), Fecalith ('fan sek').
Of course, it probably helped that I tried limiting mishaps to the bed, the bathroom, the area in front of my room, and the area in between.
I am iron-willed, and have a carbon-steel arse.
Could rip a leg off a wolf with that.
I've spent nearly a week in agony, that wolf better run for its life.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
AN EXCITING NEW ADVENTURE, WITH FUN TIMES AND AN INFECTION
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, July 13, 2019
BLINKING IN THE STRONG SUNLIGHT
So, if I've understood this right, sometime later this year, possibly in September, up to half a million people will "Naruto run" through the Nevada dessert into area 51, where they'll liberate Space Aliens, and accidentally release extraterrestrial viruses that will wipe out mankind.
Of course I had to look up what 'Naruto running' is.
Youtube was very helpful in that regard.
Best case scenario: twisted ankles and dehydration.
Worst case: daemons erupting from a stargate.
Somewhere in between: lots of city folks wandering around lost, with both the vultures and coyotes circling. While Nevada hillbillies take potshots at them from their survivalist bunkers on the ridges.
Wander around faster, I hear banjos!
Better bring lots of chocolate. I read somewhere that girls and rednecks love it when you give them chocolate! It may save your life! By the way, I doubt that anyone of them is named 'Cletus'. That sounds too much like a body part. "They tole me at the clinic that mah cletus wuz infected." "Wha? They didden remove that when you wuz born?" "Dang." Infections of the cletus cause alopecia.
Strong sunlight does things to the body.
You are pouring sweat.
Be quiet, be calm.
Eat some peanuts.
The end of times people and the flat earthers will probably also be there, on the fringes. Along with the Trotskyites that show up at every event. Don't share your chocolate with them, it will only encourage the swine.
And make them more competitive.
疾風傳
There are no hurricanes in Nevada, the series Naruto does not take place in the Great American Outback. Chocolate will melt there, and the wild beasts will turn up their cute little button noses at your dessicated corpses.
Watch out for moray eels and lizards.
Orang utan.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Of course I had to look up what 'Naruto running' is.
Youtube was very helpful in that regard.
Best case scenario: twisted ankles and dehydration.
Worst case: daemons erupting from a stargate.
Somewhere in between: lots of city folks wandering around lost, with both the vultures and coyotes circling. While Nevada hillbillies take potshots at them from their survivalist bunkers on the ridges.
Wander around faster, I hear banjos!
Better bring lots of chocolate. I read somewhere that girls and rednecks love it when you give them chocolate! It may save your life! By the way, I doubt that anyone of them is named 'Cletus'. That sounds too much like a body part. "They tole me at the clinic that mah cletus wuz infected." "Wha? They didden remove that when you wuz born?" "Dang." Infections of the cletus cause alopecia.
Strong sunlight does things to the body.
You are pouring sweat.
Be quiet, be calm.
Eat some peanuts.
The end of times people and the flat earthers will probably also be there, on the fringes. Along with the Trotskyites that show up at every event. Don't share your chocolate with them, it will only encourage the swine.
And make them more competitive.
疾風傳
There are no hurricanes in Nevada, the series Naruto does not take place in the Great American Outback. Chocolate will melt there, and the wild beasts will turn up their cute little button noses at your dessicated corpses.
Watch out for moray eels and lizards.
Orang utan.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Friday, July 12, 2019
THE MIDNIGHT SNACK OF CHAMPIONS
In retrospect, there may have been too much hot sauce. And cholula. And chiles en escabeche. And sambal. But it was good, and I'm probably going to make the same mistake in a few days. In keeping with my long-standing insistence that hot sauce is a vegetable, and therefore must be good for you. Clears out your insides, keeps you healthy and vibrant.
If I were a dog, my coat would be shiny.
On the other hand, if I were a juvenile, I would have taken full advantage of Slurpee Day at seven-11 yesterday, and have a refined sugar hangover of monumental proportions now. Rather than mild interior discomfort.
So I'm miles ahead of the curve here.
It should be a glorious day.
My first exposure to the exciting possibilities of chilies was when I was still in my single digits. Within weeks it was a secret surreptitious addition to all meals, necessary because my mother, when she cooked, cooked military-style. Or Berkeley student boarding house style. Very American.
Very "what the devil is this".
My father occasionally did the cooking, and in my teens I started preparing dinner, because due to my mother's illness she needed more rest.
Most women of her age and era cooked, having grown up with that seed firmly planted in their minds, but, truth be told, their social indoctrination never inspired them with a love of good food. If she had ever seen Julia Child, she would have been both amused and baffled. Cookbooks, until fairly late in the game, lectured on necessity and nutrition, of which there is plenty in meatloaf. As well as convenient casseroles.
It was all sternly uplifting and superior.
Cooking killed bacteria.
Hot sauce and chilies, in that universe, were somehow bad things. Unnecessary, and indulgent in a sinful and possibly depraved way.
Likely to stunt your growth both physically and morally.
Wasp propaganda had pulled a number, and we all paid for it.
I think you'll agree that chilies are, in fact, essential to the proper functioning of society, and vastly improve almost anything. And unlike bacon, they're filled with the building blocks of healthy bodies.
Everywhere between the Sierras and the Cumberland Gap would be a much better place with happier and more tolerant people if they just ate well.
Instead of the cesspools of mean-spirited trailer parkers shooting Meth that they are now.
On the other hand, that keema and rice yesterday could have been a little less assertively flavoured. And blanched veggies dipped in sambal as a side dish might, possibly, have been a bit much. Especially when I finished them off late at night as a midnight snack. Sambal lalap.
I am no longer a teenager.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
If I were a dog, my coat would be shiny.
On the other hand, if I were a juvenile, I would have taken full advantage of Slurpee Day at seven-11 yesterday, and have a refined sugar hangover of monumental proportions now. Rather than mild interior discomfort.
So I'm miles ahead of the curve here.
It should be a glorious day.
My first exposure to the exciting possibilities of chilies was when I was still in my single digits. Within weeks it was a secret surreptitious addition to all meals, necessary because my mother, when she cooked, cooked military-style. Or Berkeley student boarding house style. Very American.
Very "what the devil is this".
My father occasionally did the cooking, and in my teens I started preparing dinner, because due to my mother's illness she needed more rest.
Most women of her age and era cooked, having grown up with that seed firmly planted in their minds, but, truth be told, their social indoctrination never inspired them with a love of good food. If she had ever seen Julia Child, she would have been both amused and baffled. Cookbooks, until fairly late in the game, lectured on necessity and nutrition, of which there is plenty in meatloaf. As well as convenient casseroles.
It was all sternly uplifting and superior.
Cooking killed bacteria.
Hot sauce and chilies, in that universe, were somehow bad things. Unnecessary, and indulgent in a sinful and possibly depraved way.
Likely to stunt your growth both physically and morally.
Wasp propaganda had pulled a number, and we all paid for it.
I think you'll agree that chilies are, in fact, essential to the proper functioning of society, and vastly improve almost anything. And unlike bacon, they're filled with the building blocks of healthy bodies.
Everywhere between the Sierras and the Cumberland Gap would be a much better place with happier and more tolerant people if they just ate well.
Instead of the cesspools of mean-spirited trailer parkers shooting Meth that they are now.
On the other hand, that keema and rice yesterday could have been a little less assertively flavoured. And blanched veggies dipped in sambal as a side dish might, possibly, have been a bit much. Especially when I finished them off late at night as a midnight snack. Sambal lalap.
I am no longer a teenager.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
CHINA, PLEASE SHOOT THEM
According to news reports, nineteen people in Jiangsu Province (江蘇省 'gong sou saang') have recently been arrested for drug offences. Of which sixteen were foreigners. Four of whom are British. All were connected to a language school in Xuzhou (徐州 'cheui jau').
Why do first worlders assume that they can pull crap like this while abroad? Especially in a country whose historic problems with drugs were caused by the British and Americans unloading opium in broad daylight on the docks?
It's a bit of a sore point, I bet.
I have NO sympathy for any Europeans, Brits, or Americans caught in foreign countries doing such things.
It's not the first time that expats have broken drug laws in the People's Republic.
In fact, it's a fairly regular occurrence.
Damned pot-heads.
The only psychotropic substances of which I approve are refined sugar, caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol in moderation. Civilization has thrived on these four things, but especially caffeine. The enlightenment and the modern age would not have happened without it, and if Americans and Europeans had to survive without coffee or tea they'd be bad tempered, lazy, and probably insane.
When you are abroad, be a good example.
Rather than a liability.
PS.: This also holds for people visiting the Netherlands and Northern California. Where stoner tourists take advantage of the lax drug laws and get whacked out of their goofy little minds. Common public nuisances.
We'll gladly take your money, but can we kill you afterwards?
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Why do first worlders assume that they can pull crap like this while abroad? Especially in a country whose historic problems with drugs were caused by the British and Americans unloading opium in broad daylight on the docks?
It's a bit of a sore point, I bet.
I have NO sympathy for any Europeans, Brits, or Americans caught in foreign countries doing such things.
It's not the first time that expats have broken drug laws in the People's Republic.
In fact, it's a fairly regular occurrence.
Damned pot-heads.
The only psychotropic substances of which I approve are refined sugar, caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol in moderation. Civilization has thrived on these four things, but especially caffeine. The enlightenment and the modern age would not have happened without it, and if Americans and Europeans had to survive without coffee or tea they'd be bad tempered, lazy, and probably insane.
When you are abroad, be a good example.
Rather than a liability.
PS.: This also holds for people visiting the Netherlands and Northern California. Where stoner tourists take advantage of the lax drug laws and get whacked out of their goofy little minds. Common public nuisances.
We'll gladly take your money, but can we kill you afterwards?
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, July 11, 2019
THROW ON SOME CLOTHES!
On the way home, I saw a woman wearing black leather hotpants. Take it from me, that is not a good look. She was reasonable proportioned, I guess, but even if she were big as a house and tattooed all over, it still wouldn't have been worth more than a passing glance at the carnival freak-show.
No, I am not a puritan. And despite my family's Calvinist history (mercifully over, four generations ago), I am not a disapproving Christian.
I like a nice bit of pulchritude.
Tight leather is something only gay men should wear. It just does not do anything good to the female form.
In this regard I am an immovable purist. If I were a woman, all my clothing would be clean and comfortable, no chafing tightnesses, no sweaty pockets because of ill fit, no straps and cinching.
My version of a poodle skirt would have an appliqué Hello Kitty, either wielding a cheroot or a machine gun. Probably the cheroot.
Actual poodles are stupid.
Saying that may get the poodle partisans on my case, but seeing as those people are not the type I ever wish to meet in person, and their comments will be deleted like spam before I ever approve them for publication here, no problem.
Hello Kitty probably smokes Nicaraguans.
EPC, My Father, Liga Privada.
That's just a guess.
A poodle skirt is, other than the damned poodle, something one could in good conscience wear to church or a social event. Or on a date.
Leather hot pants, no.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
No, I am not a puritan. And despite my family's Calvinist history (mercifully over, four generations ago), I am not a disapproving Christian.
I like a nice bit of pulchritude.
Tight leather is something only gay men should wear. It just does not do anything good to the female form.
In this regard I am an immovable purist. If I were a woman, all my clothing would be clean and comfortable, no chafing tightnesses, no sweaty pockets because of ill fit, no straps and cinching.
My version of a poodle skirt would have an appliqué Hello Kitty, either wielding a cheroot or a machine gun. Probably the cheroot.
Actual poodles are stupid.
Hello Kitty probably smokes Nicaraguans.
EPC, My Father, Liga Privada.
That's just a guess.
A poodle skirt is, other than the damned poodle, something one could in good conscience wear to church or a social event. Or on a date.
Leather hot pants, no.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
THE KETCHUP HORDES HAVE LANDED!
It struck me that if you really want to the tourists to have a treat, you need to feed them some real food. Too many servings of sweet 'n sour pork and they'll bloat up like Harvey the Whale. And seeing as most of them come from the deep interior, where lard is king, they're already coping with a bit of surplussage.
I like lard. It's what makes a pie-crust so deliciously good.
But Midwesterners use it with damned well everything except corn on the cob and cheese.
These are the people who have a tendency to roll.
From what I've heard, my maternal grandmother always praised fat kids as "nice and healthy looking", mistaking morbidly obese with well-nourished. She was from the Midwest, as was her husband, who was far more realistic about the Honey Boo Boos of the world.
Unfortunately the home cooking of their world included string beans boiled for half a day, as well as three different greasy potato dishes with each meal. They dropped the multiple potatoes early on, which lead to longevity.
My grandfather passed away in his eighties.
Better for you: Cantonese Home Cooking
Chicago has grease-bomb skillet-pizza swimming in lard, Ohio does pizza on a stick deepfried in lard. Kansans simply drink it straight out of the tub.
Yeah no, I've never been to Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin. But judging from the nice visitors wandering around the city, their diets leave something to be desired.
Now you know why the woolly mammoth is extinct.
They were all deepfried in lard.
On a stick.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I like lard. It's what makes a pie-crust so deliciously good.
But Midwesterners use it with damned well everything except corn on the cob and cheese.
These are the people who have a tendency to roll.
From what I've heard, my maternal grandmother always praised fat kids as "nice and healthy looking", mistaking morbidly obese with well-nourished. She was from the Midwest, as was her husband, who was far more realistic about the Honey Boo Boos of the world.
Unfortunately the home cooking of their world included string beans boiled for half a day, as well as three different greasy potato dishes with each meal. They dropped the multiple potatoes early on, which lead to longevity.
My grandfather passed away in his eighties.
Better for you: Cantonese Home Cooking
Chicago has grease-bomb skillet-pizza swimming in lard, Ohio does pizza on a stick deepfried in lard. Kansans simply drink it straight out of the tub.
Yeah no, I've never been to Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin. But judging from the nice visitors wandering around the city, their diets leave something to be desired.
Now you know why the woolly mammoth is extinct.
They were all deepfried in lard.
On a stick.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
CHIA PANG BO - HAVE YOU EATEN YET?
Serve it with rice, and some pickled vegetables for variety. If you are from the former East Indies (Batavia), you will prepare it with much more vegetable matter in the mix, whereas people who still remember a distant home town somewhere south of Amoy (廈門 'haa mun') make it cleaner. Serve it simply glopped on a pile of rice, or dumped over noodles or dumplings, or even cooked asparagus.
Someone I had not seen for a few years recognized me on the street last week, and greeted me with a phrase that instantly recalled previous places and times. He's Dutch, born in Jakarta, but American for over five decades.
I used to know his parents and an uncle.
"Ei, lu chia-pang bo?"
Have you eaten (rice) or not yet? Sometimes 'Dutch' does not mean racially Dutch. Sometimes it means legally Dutch, but nicely mixed with other ethnicities and cultures. Such as Batavia Chinese. He speaks Dutch, Hokkien, and English. Almost no Malay. Some Spanish.
Only a little bit of Canto.
His familiarity with windmills is that building out by the beach.
He's never worn wooden shoes in his life.
Lu chia pang bo (汝食飯無) is pure Jakarta (Batavia) Hokkien (福建話).
The same meaning as 'lei sik jo faan mei' (你食咗飯未) in Cantonese, 'Nǐ chīfànle ma' (你吃飯了嗎) in Mandarin. It's friendlier than Dutch "heb je al gegeten?" which sometimes implies "don't mind us if we finish our meal", rather than a warm invitation to pull up a chair and have a bite (that's very Northern, in the Protestant part of the Netherlands). The correct answer is "chia pang" (Southern Min: 'chiak png') or, if it's been a fractured day and you haven't yet, "bo chia"('boh chiak').
We used English and Dutch for the rest of the conversation. He's well. His children all have good jobs and are married. Everyone is in good health.
He has five grandchildren, three girls.
And he has eaten.
肉燥/魯肉/滷肉/豆油肉/爐汁肉
['bah soh'/'lo bah'/'lo bah'/'tau yiu bah'/'lo chap bah']
Naturally food was discussed. Mostly Indonesian, some Chinese, erwten soep and kroketten, plus pizza. But he did mention something so simple as to almost be non-existent: Lo chap bah. Plain pork cooked with soy sauce.
Fry ground leanish pork or small chunks of fatty meat with a big spoonful of sambal, and minced shallots or small onions plus ginger till flavoured, then simmer with soy sauce, sherry, stock, and a hefty pinch of sugar, till dark.
I always add some chopped ja choi (榨菜) for crunch.
Very camp after the war. Very poor urban kampong. And something the Fujianese Philippinos I knew in Southern California also knew. In English, they called it "Chinese spaghetti sauce". And if you throw in a couple of chopped tomatoes, you can see why.
You can also dump it over your French fries, precisely like melted zult.
Years ago, living in a residential hotel, I ate it often.
Communal kitchen cookery.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Someone I had not seen for a few years recognized me on the street last week, and greeted me with a phrase that instantly recalled previous places and times. He's Dutch, born in Jakarta, but American for over five decades.
I used to know his parents and an uncle.
"Ei, lu chia-pang bo?"
Have you eaten (rice) or not yet? Sometimes 'Dutch' does not mean racially Dutch. Sometimes it means legally Dutch, but nicely mixed with other ethnicities and cultures. Such as Batavia Chinese. He speaks Dutch, Hokkien, and English. Almost no Malay. Some Spanish.
Only a little bit of Canto.
His familiarity with windmills is that building out by the beach.
He's never worn wooden shoes in his life.
Lu chia pang bo (汝食飯無) is pure Jakarta (Batavia) Hokkien (福建話).
The same meaning as 'lei sik jo faan mei' (你食咗飯未) in Cantonese, 'Nǐ chīfànle ma' (你吃飯了嗎) in Mandarin. It's friendlier than Dutch "heb je al gegeten?" which sometimes implies "don't mind us if we finish our meal", rather than a warm invitation to pull up a chair and have a bite (that's very Northern, in the Protestant part of the Netherlands). The correct answer is "chia pang" (Southern Min: 'chiak png') or, if it's been a fractured day and you haven't yet, "bo chia"('boh chiak').
We used English and Dutch for the rest of the conversation. He's well. His children all have good jobs and are married. Everyone is in good health.
He has five grandchildren, three girls.
And he has eaten.
肉燥/魯肉/滷肉/豆油肉/爐汁肉
['bah soh'/'lo bah'/'lo bah'/'tau yiu bah'/'lo chap bah']
Naturally food was discussed. Mostly Indonesian, some Chinese, erwten soep and kroketten, plus pizza. But he did mention something so simple as to almost be non-existent: Lo chap bah. Plain pork cooked with soy sauce.
Fry ground leanish pork or small chunks of fatty meat with a big spoonful of sambal, and minced shallots or small onions plus ginger till flavoured, then simmer with soy sauce, sherry, stock, and a hefty pinch of sugar, till dark.
I always add some chopped ja choi (榨菜) for crunch.
Very camp after the war. Very poor urban kampong. And something the Fujianese Philippinos I knew in Southern California also knew. In English, they called it "Chinese spaghetti sauce". And if you throw in a couple of chopped tomatoes, you can see why.
You can also dump it over your French fries, precisely like melted zult.
Years ago, living in a residential hotel, I ate it often.
Communal kitchen cookery.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
HEY CHINO!
He had a white loony to his right, I had the "most dangerous man in North Beach" to my left. The white loony kept staring at us with distrust, the most dangerous man was clearly stoned out of his mind, and kept giggling in that irritating way that he has. Over at the karaoke machine a young woman was singing in Mandarin, not very badly, and four Cantonese gentlemen near the door played liar's dice.
So if you actually think about it, the place is thankfully back to normal.
Calmer than when the mainlanders infested it 3 weeks ago.
Also much calmer than when the owner is there.
Earlier on Grant Avenue I had smoked my pipe while waiting for the bookseller. While there, an "artistic" guitar player strolled past accompanying a raggedy man with a bum leg, and a deranged person sounding exactly like Linda Blair in the exorcist screamed in fury at intervals from an alleyway further down the street. The actual number of dysfunctionals in North Beach was lower than usual, but the few made up with their high level for the many who were missing.
Her angry vocalizing was audible from 2 blocks away.
Lung power, world-hate, and conviction.
"Dear mother and father, I have landed in the New World, and I dare not drink the water. It's bad enough that I have to breathe the air, I am certain that it's filled with a poisonous miasma that makes people insane. There are screaming women on the streets, and the smell of marijuana is everywhere too. The food consists mostly of potatoes, lard, and beef tallow; everyone smells of it.
Love you, miss the hometown.
Regards."
Later, while outside the karaoke joint enjoying a cigarillo, a Mexican dude rolled up and asked for a cigarette. The elderly pilgrim also having a smoke and I both denied having any. Then he wanted to know if we had marijuana, and was quite put out when we snapped 'no'. After thinking for a bit, he finally asked "hey Chino, got a dollar?"
Which yielded nothing also.
Who the hell addresses the person they are importuning with "hey Chino"?
Especially if they know all the words in English for every other dingbat request they made? I went back inside to finish my hot water. The bookseller sipped his second whisky. The white loony looked daggers at us. The Mandarin speaker sang a song that went on forever.
We left just as the loony began singing. As a general rule of thumb, Caucasians should neither do karaoke themselves nor encourage their friends to do so.
Ego and a lack of taste or talent do not combine well with alcohol.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
So if you actually think about it, the place is thankfully back to normal.
Calmer than when the mainlanders infested it 3 weeks ago.
Also much calmer than when the owner is there.
Earlier on Grant Avenue I had smoked my pipe while waiting for the bookseller. While there, an "artistic" guitar player strolled past accompanying a raggedy man with a bum leg, and a deranged person sounding exactly like Linda Blair in the exorcist screamed in fury at intervals from an alleyway further down the street. The actual number of dysfunctionals in North Beach was lower than usual, but the few made up with their high level for the many who were missing.
Her angry vocalizing was audible from 2 blocks away.
Lung power, world-hate, and conviction.
"Dear mother and father, I have landed in the New World, and I dare not drink the water. It's bad enough that I have to breathe the air, I am certain that it's filled with a poisonous miasma that makes people insane. There are screaming women on the streets, and the smell of marijuana is everywhere too. The food consists mostly of potatoes, lard, and beef tallow; everyone smells of it.
Love you, miss the hometown.
Regards."
Later, while outside the karaoke joint enjoying a cigarillo, a Mexican dude rolled up and asked for a cigarette. The elderly pilgrim also having a smoke and I both denied having any. Then he wanted to know if we had marijuana, and was quite put out when we snapped 'no'. After thinking for a bit, he finally asked "hey Chino, got a dollar?"
Which yielded nothing also.
Who the hell addresses the person they are importuning with "hey Chino"?
Especially if they know all the words in English for every other dingbat request they made? I went back inside to finish my hot water. The bookseller sipped his second whisky. The white loony looked daggers at us. The Mandarin speaker sang a song that went on forever.
We left just as the loony began singing. As a general rule of thumb, Caucasians should neither do karaoke themselves nor encourage their friends to do so.
Ego and a lack of taste or talent do not combine well with alcohol.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
PLEASE DON'T
Oh dang, according to the news we're starting another heat event today with an indefinite end. This will please all the sweaty nudists. ...
