They’re also particularly good as a flavour additive in western dishes: if you’re making bechamel for a fish pie, for example, you can put them in the milk for a couple of hours beforehand. Anything that has smoked oysters in it is also going to benefit from some katsuobushi. Also, for some reason,…

Try it! Maybe, like my baby sister, you’ll go on to be a terrifying corporate litigator as a result.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Trout you caught yourself, cooked at the riverside with homemade lemon mayo. I would commit vile, horrific acts of premeditated cruelty to be eating that tomorrow.

Struggling to understand this one. My little sister made gravlax unsupervised when she was eight (it was a protest about not being allowed to cook without adult supervision) and it was gorgeous. What do you think are the hazards of gravlax-making?

It’s a good thing he spoke up: MLB planned to increase the pressure on him by quartering soldiers in his garage.

A long-ago colleague had his bathroom and kitchen faucets/doorknobs/shiny stuff stripped and re-plated with rhodium (I know but he was that kind of guy and it was that kind of flat. Sort of a temple to posh mod Britannia) Then he got posted to HK for a couple of months and let his “I like to clean things” mother, who…

Thanks - I’ll have a look.

That is really lovely! Does the studio have a website? I need a housewarming gift (to myself, so don’t give me any unearned credit for generosity).

Really, to reflect modern British tastes, this should be served with curry sauce and a pint of organic perry. Also, you can move Heinz’ US beans somewhat closer to the flavour God intended by adding (for one large can) a tablespoon of malt vinegar and about four drops of Maggi Seasoning Sauce. My dear mother came up…

I know. It’s even worse than that: she got the advice from her mother, whom she says never got colds... I think I used this as a real-world example in a college paper on Karl Popper.

In addition to your normal throwaway schedule, throw them away after any illness or infection strong enough to keep you off work for more than a half-day, along with your toothbrush (or the brush tip). I got that advice from the only primary school teacher I know who never gets colds.

Muji are typically ok with numbers or words that are literally descriptive in product names - large, washable, fireproof, etc - so I’m wondering if it had a 1l engine?

I would have used this so frequently, so irresponsibly, so remorselessly that post-hoc exclaiming would have become, at the very least, a misdemeanour!

My last day in Asia, I bought 8 Muji shirts and - I’m not kidding - about 150 of their pens. The car is meant, I think, to be a mix of Muji’s no-brand, post-affluence aesthetic and Nissan’s belief that their designs are good enough to trigger feelings of moe (mo-way) among Japanese buyers. Moe is... I don’t know how…

It’s not mine, it’s a recipe-not-at-hand recollection of an Elizabeth David dish. If she ever wrote a bad recipe for lamb, I’ve never seen it.

Try this. Get yourself a lamb leg or shoulder (preferably bone-in but it doesn’t make much difference except for the fun of pulling out a perfectly clean bone with no resistance) and about 150g of green olives in olive oil. Spread the olives over the bottom of a casserole dish that fits the lamb relatively tightly.…

What do Americans (which I’m assuming you are) shorten to just the word mirin? Hon mirin or shio mirin? Is it possible I’m talking about hon mirin and you’re talking about shio mirin? If so, your first point about specifying suddenly makes complete sense to me...

Sorry - I’m still confused. You could definitely use Mirin in the altered recipe I gave, if you prefer that taste to sake. Mirin has a slightly higher percentage of alcohol than most Western wines. I think If a reader is going to confuse rice wine with rice wine vinegar, there isn’t much that can be done to help them.

I’m not sure I’m following you. I suggested using a rice wine and, while a sake would work, I was thinking about Shaoxing or Cheongju. I didn’t mean vinegar and I hope I didn’t give you that impression.

I get the logic and I’ve love to have a bite of the result. I associate sequentially fermented/enzymated foods with things like pastes, run-off liquids and semi-solids: ingredients rather than things you bite into directly. What you want to do is so worth trying though...