This is what I do with my gyoza filling. I make a few hundred at a time, so it’s worth it to fry up a little bit at the start to make sure that the seasoning is just right.

Dearest troll, in your hurry to look oh-so-clever, you misread badly.

My best friend had a five-person household. Everyone was immunocompromised. Only one was able to get the vaccine. He didn’t get COVID. The other four did. Two of those four were hospitalized. One, my best friend, died. The one who has not gotten it gets EVERYTHING that goes around. That to me is all the evidence that…

I have a single female friend who has been living in the UAE for years. Her life is not much different than when she lived in Canada and Australia. There are some emirates that are very restrictive, but Dubai and Sharjah are not.

I’m also leery of supplements — eat a bell pepper instead of paying for vitamin C, for example — but the Bs are notoriously easy to get deficient in, especially for women and especially for women who cut out certain food groups. B12 is the biggest culprit and is often prescribed by a doc as a series of injections…

A couple of months ago because I was just swimming through molasses. Went for a full checkup. Doc suspected hypothyroidism, but wanted to run a few more tests before starting me on levothyroxine. He got me on a Vitamin B complex in the interim and it might as well have been speed. I was shocked by how much better I…

I have a friend who got an amazing deal on a huge tool chest on wheels, the kind with drawers, in a silver colour, that she turned into her kitchen island. That thing holds an amazing amount of stuff, including all her cast iron in deep drawers. It’s been several years and the chest still looks and operates perfectly.

I live in the tropics and cockroaches are a fact of life here. I was shocked that the better I got at maintaining a climate-appropriate cleaning routine, the more problem I started having with cockroaches. Searching harder for food, perhaps? Their primary mode of ingress is up the drains, so I keep all my drains…

I’m GenX. In 2008, I retired from the Canadian civil service so I could take a decade off to travel. I thought I’d job hop, but quickly realised that I needed to start working for myself — I ended up being a pioneer of the digital nomad lifestyle. I started off in transcription in the summer of 2011 because the…

For those of you who don’t have an ice cream maker, I do the wrap the bottle in soaking wet paper towels and pop in the freezer for 15 minutes trick and that works great (Works on beer, wine, pop, you name it. Just don’t forget about it!).

I prefer a crispier apple, but otherwise, yes, yes, yes!

If you really want to level up, use grilled Oaxaca cheese as your filling for the Chihuahua cheese coated quesadilla -- take a hunk of Oaxaca and sear it until each side is dark brown and crispy and the inside is all melty and stringy. That’s how they do quesadillas in Oaxaca City and it changed my life!

I live in Mexico and quesadillas are common food here. Not something I normally order from a restaurant as I almost always have cheese and tortillas on-hand, but I was going through a brutal work week and the fridge was empty. So I ordered a bunch of food from a local joint, including quesadillas. I was asked if I…

Oh, my cats were trained — none of that climbing on the food prep/eating surfaces, knocking stuff off tables, destroying the furniture nonsense with my brood. But tricks? They had better things to do. But one of my two knew how to open a door!

My theory is that cats are too smart to do tricks. They could learn them, but don’t see a point since their slaves will take care of them regardless.

Yesterday, I told my dog, “I’m going for a nap. Come get me in 30 minutes.” I was just returning to the land of the awake when I heard a soft “woof,” and seconds after that, my alarm rang. So my dog understands English and has a good sense of time. She is as smart as I think she is.

Damn you. I was on my way to bed, but now I’m on my way to the kitchen to make some pimento cheese so that it will be ready for breakfast. Thank goodness I already have some roasted red peppers in the fridge!

I recently ordered a gyro and a side of falafel. Nowhere was there a mention of french fries. I got a full order of french fries with the sandwich, a half portion of french fries inside the sandwich, and the falafel came with a full order of french fries. The spirit was willing but the body was not and I was eating…

That did the trick! I ended up letting it soak overnight, then blending for five mins. I had stuff coming off in sheets in the morning. It was so gross. And I can’t even say that it was hard water buildup because I’ve done the vinegar trick. So I don’t know what that was. The container still has plenty of scratches…

My daily morning smoothie has spinach, celery, banana, mango, chia seeds, maybe some nuts, and filtered water. The tap water where I live is incredibly hard, so I try to periodically wash it with filtered water with vinegar, but that never helps. The container just crusty and stained and disgusting.