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My African Violet

on December 26, 2008

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I have finally managed to make my African violet flower again! I tried so many things, but in the end it's the sun-bathing that did the trick!!!

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Whole wheat sandwich bread (Pullman loaf)

Perhaps it is related to my mild OCD, but there is something extremely satisfying for me to make perfectly square sandwich bread. I bought these loaf pans -- usually called Pullman Loaf pans -- from Amazon but have been too lazy to calculate the exact dough size and recipe for it until this weekend. It makes a nice 4"x4"x13" loaf. I have been baking bread off and on for the last year or so. So far the use of water roux starter (Tang-Zhong, 湯種) is by far the best way to make pillow-like soft bread that stay soft for days while using only a small amount of butter. This is a method very popular in Japan and Taiwan, and probably pacific Asia in general. It probably has something to do with the fact that very few traditional Western recipes feature doughs made with hot water, while many traditional Chinese recipes called for the use of hot water in dough making. (Actually the only Western recipe I can think of is Pate a Choux) The hot water gelatinizes the starch molecules i...

My favorite: Lacquered pork (東坡肉). Pork belly stewed with scallions, spices, rice wine, soy sauce, and sugar

Downhill alert!

So I have officially begun my adventures into the NYC Chinatown. When it comes to choosing ethnic restaurants, there isn't any source that is truly reliable. I have long given up on Citysearch , a website that seemed to have been sold to the other side. Zagat usually isn't very helpful, and can be outdated due to its long delay between its reviewing and publication times. Michelin , useless to say, is more geared towards fine cuisine. Chowhound is a pretty up-to-date and honest (though very subjective) information pool. But with the mind-boggling number of restaurants in NYC, the chance of finding current information on one particular small place is pretty slim. In Taiwan, going out to eat with this lack of information is often called "watching out for landmines (踩地雷)." The landmines refer to those restaurants with bad food that cannot be easily detected by a casual passerby. Anyway, the downhill alert is not for a new place. I went to Joe Shanghai (鹿鳴春) for crab soup...

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