About Food

I want to say something more about my observation regarding the Aussie foods. I think it is very similar to any North American western food/restaurants. Unless the meal costs you an arm and leg, it is very hard to have a hearty meal where the ingredients are fresh and the dishes taste amazingly interesting (if you have one of those in your neighborhood in these English speaking regions, go there as much as you can because they will close down soon - just heard about the burger joints, Five Guys, are closing down in Hong Kong. They sell junk food, no doubt, but they make junk food from very good ingredients, good grade beef and sinister cream for milkshakes). What is the reason that people are ok with the food standard - it is not bad after all, just average for those restaurants in the high street. My theory is that there is no reference to judge what is good. At home, modern life has squeezed all housewives/househusbands time and energy to prepare for good hearty meal, industrialization of meat productions, packaging and logicstic makes it impossible for people to taste fresh beef/poultry/pork. Just got some feedback regarding the eggs in Australia, we asked why the eggs taste so blend and old in the algriculture giant country? Especially they came from the biggest supermarket chain, which should have very strong barganning power. It is explained that the government culted all egg-laying chicken few years back due to birdflu scare, what's left in the farm are not egg chicken. I guess if the kids who never taste great fresh eggs will think that's what the eggs should be. I belive a good dish came from good ingredient, so it is not likely to have great meal at home, will it be possible to get it from the street? My observation is not likely, either. It is very expensive to dine out, typical high street restaurant will put much more effort in creating the good ambience, good services and providing good drinks rather than good dishes. It pays to be nice, because no customers will give you bad review, especially when the whole street's restaurants tastes the same. supplement after a day away from Noosa:

Recommended by our Air BNB hostess, we drove 45 mins away from the posh Noosa into the less well-to-do farming county. The restaurant is sitting next to the old hotel recently renovated, food is good. The beef short ribs is from the bred of Wagyu X Jersey, smoked then slow cooked. Tender, but a bit too salty to my taste.

Surf Lessons in Noosa Qreensland

Started our Aussie holidays by 3-day surfing lessons. All other people in our group are half of my ages. The instructor, James, is very patient and pays attention to all 7 of us. We took turns to try to catch the waves (at the same time, battling with the rough broken waves and currents at the chest deep sea water in Noosa beach), of course the most important thing is to pop up on the board. Pop up involves doing a cobra, plank, then move the smart leg in the center of the board, and finally, the dumb leg to the front of the smart leg. That was not too difficcult because it is pretty much the same as Ashtanga yoga practice I have been doing for almost 8 years - we generally do 40 to 50 combination of cobra and plank in every practice. The most difficult bit is to catch the right timing when waves come, and paddle to speed up to catch the front side of the wave. Today is the second day of daily 2 hour surfing lesson, from 9 to 11am. We figured it is a bit too much to do it 3 days in a row, we asked for a break, resume the last class on Monday. Noosa head is the traditional East coast Aussie's holiday destination. Clean street, warmish weather (it is close to the winter now, early morning and evening are still cold), lots of nice tree, green bushes on the side walk, fancy restaurants and cafe, fashion shops (people always want to shop). But however fancy the restaurants, the food all tastes average. The ingredients might all come from the same supermarkets we bought our foods from. No comparison and no requirement, everyone is happy with the average food. Where is the food culture (crying)?

BSF Larvae

My original thought was to have the black soldier fly larvae, the maggots, to eat away the beer brewing waste, the spent grain. But they are eating so much when growing up, finishing about 5 kg of wasted grains within 2 weeks. I had to go around town to collect rotten veggies and uneaten foods to feed them. The most surprising thing is that although they eat the hops, Chaff, but the beer hops are keeping everything from rotting which makes them unable to feed on the foor, they do like the rotting matter, fresh food is not so popular. Also, the hops were very wet after fishing them out of the mash brewing pot. That's the easy bit to deal with. I just mixed those with the grains which is not so bad. But the sediment of fermentation is hard to deal with (I think it is just a waste to throw them away). I had to cook the remaining dead yeast, protein and hop remain into the slush. The smell of hops lingered in my apartment for 2 days to a point I start to dislike the IPA beers or any hoppy beer, oops. But the slush is still too wet, because of its anti-bacterial nature, they are keeping the raw chicken head and other fruit matter fresh! It is too strong the sterilizer, I wonder how the frass, the left over from BSFL farm, is going to work with the plants. Without bacterial colonies in soils, it is hard to create a healthy soil. They are turning into pupa, they stop feeding. I have the next project to dry up the worm farm from the slush, the smell was not so good.

Raining Day in Cheung Chau

We moved to the island Cheung Chau about 5 years ago. It started with the weekly weekend visit for windsurfing practice and end up living on the island. The apartment was far away from the pier, there is no vehicles allowed, it takes 10 mins to walk uphill to our complex. The complex is only half occupied, some of our neighours only use the property as holiday home. The landlord gave us the key before we officially signed the contract, we knocked out the old kitchen and put in the new one ourselves. Fixed the leaky roof and flooding balcony. Picked up many funitures from the rubbhish bin nearby, having great roof top to fix the sails, boards and I can finally doing some proper gardening (still on my way to become the gardener, not yet killing thousands of plants). It is 5 minutes walk to the windsurfing beach, birds like to hang out and windsurfing center dog, Fei Fei, likes to visit us. It is raining hard today, nothing to do, we can only wait for the rain to stop and winds to pick up hopefully in the afternoon.

New Puppy

New puppy, Tiger, is joinning the windsurfing center family. Fei Fei is not very impressed.

Prisoners of Anger

April 30th, after hanging in my pass and work computer, said goodbye to my colleagues, wrapping up my contract with AIA for 2 years, and rushed to the 12:45pm ferry back to Cheung Chau. It is getting hot, tourists started to crowd the street of town center. Because this is the starting of the long weekend. We decided to go for a walk while it is still sunny, maybe play with the dogs in Windsurfing center a bit then do some shopping afterwards. Walking back from the windsurfing center, passing the Garden, the pub ran by Melissa and Peter, we were about to stop to chat to Melissa about Fei Fei. Fei Fei is in a habbit to patrol the town center, visiting people she knows (and know her), waiting for treats. As getting closer to the Garden, an old lady and a young girl were shouting at each other, an old guy on the bicycle trying to separate them. With the old guy as the center, the 2 women chased each other in circle, and eventually one caught on and slapped the other. Being slapped and dumbfounded one woke up and chased the other. It sounds like the young girl walked while reading her phone, bumped into the old lady and thus the conflict. While 2 ladies escalated the action, a young man ran over and shouted at the young girl "get your hand off my mother". He then pushed her hard and she fell flat on the floor, drink spilled and the back of her head hit the floor. Things are out of control. Why the anger has controlled the situation? Animal instinct has takent the driver seat, trivial incidents escalate into a serious insult, grudges beared for life. Relationship destroyed and cannot be repaired. I have a few family members are the prisoners of Anger, speaking out of personal experience.

Home Quarantine (7)

I am still logging into work, so the daily schedule is not much different from normal. Get out of the bed by 6am, coffee and cleaning, yoga and shower before 9:15am. Starting to look at the computer until lunch time, break for lunch, pick up the computer again until 6pm. Then alcohol time! Saturday and Sunday makes the big difference, althogh the local police station still calls me every 2 hours, I can sleep until my hearts content. Take all my sweet time to practice Ashtanga and mop the floor again. It is fantastic to have 2 slow days once every week.

I am generally very diappointed with the Chinese media that I can get hold of, perhaps I am just not trying hard enough to look for the articles or newspaper that doesn't simply regergutate the western mainstream media's opinions or news. In general, I don't think these Chinese media are capable of supporting their own investigation center outside of the domestic turf. Sigh...

Picture was taken with my brother and nephew when we met in Appi ski resort in Iwata prefecture before the COVID outbreak. That was a great holidays!

Home Quarantine (6)

Day 7 in home quarantine, I spent time learing Japanese (I vow to get food and drink to my table next time I visit Japan), dealing with work (otherwise I get really too bored) and cleaning the apartment/cooking. The weather has turned great today, the balcony has the warm breeze coming up from the field nearby, bright and sunny day. Who invented home quarantine? Healthy people will be ill if locking in for 14 days!

The picture looks like Jon was trying out the sling in the water market in Thailand - the vendor in the market was very clever. He provided the slings and some fruit seeds or pods, hard as stone. In front of us, some tin cans were hanging on the trees out of the alley way facing the water. We get to shoot the can, if hitting anything, a candy is the reward.

Home Quarantine (5)

One more week to go. The vaccine has claimed 29 lives in Norway, the authority came out sand said we should stop vaccinating the old a frail people very young and healthy people should still be vaccinated. But hello, only old and frail people die of COVID virus. Young and healthy people do not die of COVID - by statistics. What is the rational? The so called health experts probably never study statistics in university, or they are just too eager to get a share of the publicity for their future career development. It has been a good day in Taipei, the temperature has gone up a bit to 20C during the day, no need to have the radiator on. I am too bored and going through the food Mom has stocked up for us. Planning what to have for lunch and dinner the next day. I am also calculating the space left from the freezer so that I can put the food scrapes (we are not allowed to throw away any garbage, they can be virus infused). It is like a 3-D Tetrix game. You eat this, and you have space for more garbage. In Hong Kong, I have my own small composite bin in the balcony, good enough to turn the veggie bits into some neutritions for the plants. But Mom hates nature, she never had a plant in her living space, how strange. The picture was taken in Vietnam a year before last, we were on the Tuktuk texi and thinking we are being conned. It is not about the money lost, it is the feeling of being ripped off that kills me.