JUST ADD NUTMEG

Some light reading while waiting for the fog to lift: bamboo, Oregon, a black woman's breasts in Alabama, stuffed anteater, sun-dried tomatoes, the Negev, insecticides, cold buckwheat noodles (Pyongyang Naengmyeon, 平壤冷麺), Balenciaga, and Hong Kong soup noodles, which are far too salty. Some varieties of noodle-in-soup served at restaurants have more sodium than the three day World Health Organization recommended maximum.

Which surprised me.
Don't drink the soup.

I have a particular fondness for Guan Miao noodles (關廟麵 'gwaan miu min'), and have never eaten Pyongyang style cold buckwheat noodles.
My mother would have eschewed both.


The only noodles allowed into the house when I was still a youngster were spaghetti. Bami and beehoon had to be smuggled in, and like many dubious comestibles were hidden in the cellar, for which one had to descend narrow steep concrete stairs. My mother never went down there because of her lumbago and Ménière's syndrome.

My father and I made good use of that hiding place.
Noodles. Condiments. Spices. Sambal.


A taste for exciting food was set early on. Often try what you've never eaten before, read books that make you uncomfortable, and change your routines. Don't always take the same road home. Oh, and do sneak in some groene haring regularly, despite a certain person's firm conviction that everyone will die horribly of herring nematodes in their guts because the damned natives are crazy and don't know what they're doing.
Groene haring is delicious.



The fog has still not lifted. We've gone from the rainy season almost directly into summer in San Francisco. There is no groene haring here. The cheroot which I started over an hour ago is almost gone, I've nearly finished my second cup of coffee, and am starting to ponder lunch.

Stewed fatty pork belly over rice.
With lots of hot sauce.
Old fire soup.
[老火湯]




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