Eating in a box

So yes I know it's been a while. After returning from Sydney back to Austin, my wife and I decided we should take time off together and travel. It's a rare thing for both of us to be off and not be constrained by vacation days left.  We've seen some neat places and had some wonderful food. And as much as I have been posting about my trips here, it was far easier to post a few pictures on facebook. Long form posting is a tough thing to keep up with, and I was taking a break to recharge so that meant that this blog too had to take a break. It's hard taking pictures, touching up and choosing what you want to talk about. I am surprised I have been able to manage doing this for 10 years. Of course as a man of leisure there's much video game playing and lego building, a tough life to be sure, but I accept the responsibilities with great care and seriousness. (Zelda breath of the wild, zomg! you must play. ) I've not been idle this whole time, just not ful...

Work travel to Singapore, Clarke Quay I've got a post about a miso and tofu class but have been so busy traveling (work and fun) there's just been no time. Anyhow, I've put up a new blog where I can dump in pictures from the places I'm visiting where it's not all about food. It's going to be more pictures than words. I put up my last trip to the Hunter Valley a few weeks ago. www.ironjack.com

Our last port of call before returning to home port, Copenhagen Denmark. I'm not sure whether to classify this as our last stop or the stop before last. I saw this sign on while we were walking down the street.... 'Nuff said yarr. The big attraction we decided to hit was Tivoli Garden. This amusement park/regular park is very popular destination (especially with the beautiful summer weather) it has a lot more green space sitting area for people to lounge on unlike the amusement parks in America. This is the second oldest amusement parks in the world (built in 1843). In fact Walt Disney modeled his Disney world parks after the Tivoli park. This is a shot of the Asian themed area of the park. There were lots of green spaces and where park go-ers can sit and listen to music (a couple of open air theaters). This is a shot of the Mrs. Peacock herding her babies. Denmark is the home of my favorite toy Lego! Lego seems to distribute all of its models all over th...

I've been doing a lot of travel recently, I mean two-trips-that-involve-30-hours-of-travel-time-each-way-inside-of-two-months type of lots. I've had the fortune (and airline miles) to upgrade myself in the crucial legs of the trip to make it not suck too bad and the first thing you notice in business class is that the food is clearly superior to what you get in coach. (not to mention free drinks and lots more leg room) So I'm going to devote a few posts to the stuff I got to eat. This first post is my China Airlines flight to Taiwan. It's pretty nice, they bring you a big menu where you get to choose each course of the meal, but the "China Airlines Michelin Sky Feast" caught my eye. Basically they teamed up with Chef Albert Tse of Tokyo's China Blue restaurant, he has earned a one star designation from the good people at Michelin. This really piqued my interest since this has to be one heck of a challenge for a chef, you have all the challenge of cre...

So one of the reasons for returning to Taiwan was to celebrate my Sister's wedding with my extended family in Taiwan. As you may have noticed food is a very central theme in Asian culture. What's that title picture got to do with it? Nothing. Actually that's a picture of the rock we were suppose to climb but got rained out. We did manage a nice hike, but I'm sure that was a poor replacement for my brother in-law who was looking forward to the climb. Anyhow it just seemed like a nice picture to lead us into "The Banquet", I'm not making light of the title, 13 courses of food with no fillers. That's right no rice, no "extra carbs" just lots and lots of food.  Ok there's 13 courses, no need for a lot of my yammering it'll be like the last post.  Small plate appetizers to start us off. I'll spare you the other photo. We have smoked tofu, bitter melon, roasted peanuts, lilly flowers, pickled daikon radish, and pickled seaweed.  Seafood...

Did this pic on our drive to sun moon lake. Took the pic with my iPhone and used the colorburst app. Anyhow, not bad with an iphone and doing the photo work with your finger on a bumpy car ride up a mountain. This is part two of my food post for my trip to Taiwan. It's been really neat, I've seen a ton of interesting stuff like, temples, lakes and mountains (we got up to 13,000 ft) and of course the food. So much neat food  and I have so many pictures I decided I needed to just pick out a few highlights and go from there.  Interesting preparation: TIlapia sliced length wise stuffed with greens and aromatics. Then folded width wise  tied and deep fried fried. The fish is extremely tender and the exterior fins and bones are completely edible.   Green Tofu with sesame and peanuts in soy vinegar sauce. Auntie said it was made from green beans (perhaps as opposed to white dried soy beans for soy milk). Maybe fresh soy beans like the edamame you eat in restaurants I was un...

My awesome Uncle took us to the Hsin Chu fish market as one of our stops on his tour of Hsin Chu for me, my sister and brother in-law. This place always amazes me every time I stop by. The above is one of the stalls that sells dried seafood.  I'll keep this post short on the yammering and just give some pics and descriptions. Fresh water crabs they aren't the famed Chinese hair crabs but I was told they go for at least 30 USD a piece. So there's pretty darn close to the pricepoint. Baby Shark. The famous Black Mullet (also I've heard it called Grey Mullet)  prized for it's roe which is dry cured and considered a delicacy. One of my most favorite foods. Expensive and hard to come by. Apparently the italians prize the roe as well (called Bottarga Di Muggine). They grate the cured roe over pasta. Can't say I agree with that application but different strokes for different folks I suppose.  Street vendor had some sausage with flying fish roe. It's a sweet chinese...