Author Archives: Sarah


Aftershock In Tokyo

Blue Lotus

Just in case you were wondering, Shuma and I are OK. Have heard from Hideaki and in-laws and they're OK too, but with the trains in Tokyo down it looks like Hideaki will be spending the night at work. Which I'm sure his company will be delighted with. The aftershocks are endless and terrifying, and I'm so tired of grabbing Shuma and heading to the door. But we're very lucky to have no damage and still have all utilities, I've heard lots of folks in Japan are without electricity.

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Coca Cola chicken wings are it

appetiteforchina

I don't know exactly when or how Coca-cola chicken wings became a Chinese dish, but it's a baby compared to everything that originated back when dynasties existed. Heck, many people don't even realize it's a Chinese dish, much less a common one. I have never seen it printed on a restaurant menu or in an English-language Chinese cookbook. It does, however, appear from time to time in Chinese-language cookbooks and on cooking shows, sometimes involving as few as three ingredients. In China, Coke and other sodas hold a higher prestige than they do in the US. About 5 years ago, when I first visited Beijing, some relatives took me out to a pretty lavish restaurant for my first Peking duck experience. After drink orders were taken, the head waiter returned to the table with a wine cart. With a flourish, he brandished a bottle in his right arm for inspection, which, for course, turned out to be Coke instead Bordeaux.

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Sheen and Hopper wrestle with Barbecue concept

Image credit: SeannyBoy

Hollywood barbecues just aren’t what they were. Sigh.

I was thinking back to my Charlie Sheen encounters in LA. When I worked for Dennis Hopper as his assistant for a while, Charlie was a regular visitor to the compound. One day we were watching Dennis do his barbecue trick with a flamethrower he had purloined from some movie.

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Garfunkels Still a Recipe for Profits

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Well at least we now know who eats there…

Tourists flocking to its Garfunkel’s outlets in Central London helped The Restaurant Group come though the weather, ash clouds and recession last year in decent shape. Profits in 2010 rose by 17% to £56.5m, from £48.3m, on revenues up 7% at £466m. Like-for-like sales fell by 1%. TRG’s food outlets, Frankie & Benny's, Chiquito, Garfunkel's and pub restaurants, performed well, delivering a 6% increase in revenues and profits, though Garfunkel’s put in a “superb” performance the company said.

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Happy Proof that Future Queen Gives a Toss

BBC News

I'm really wondering what the lady in the background with the white iphone thought she was photographing.

Smiling royal bride-to-be Kate Middleton tossed a pancake in the centre of Belfast on Tuesday. She flipped it up in the air outside City Hall as several people cheered and wished her well for her wedding day next month. Miss Middleton, 29, was handed a frying pan by Prince William and told to "have a go" in front of children fundraising on Shrove Tuesday.

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Sheen Serves Up More Baloney

Image credit: Angela George

Charlie Sheen’s talk-show-host debut, Charlie’s Korner, was good and forgettable, but one thing stuck in our mind: Blump’s Squeezeable Bacon. Sheen mentioned the show’s supposed sponsor in passing along with tiger blood, but is it real? The short answer: No.

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Staines goes haute cuisine… with a new kebab stand

Eat Noodles Love Noodles

When you find a cheap, delicious street food stand, never let it go. Even if it is in Staines.

Decent street food is hard to find in Blighty, so when I came across K & K Fresh Foods, I was always going to check it out. It was love at first smell, as the smoky aroma from the grill lured me over to join a lengthy but fast moving queue.

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A Tale of Mice, Men and Food Terrorism

Image credit: Collection of National Media Museum

We must step up the fight against food terrorism. Or at least, if this uneventful list is anything to go by. Rule #1: All food must be cooked in a clear plastic bag and sucked from a 100ml tube.

Earlier this week, the internet seemed to explode with news of an act of “food terrorism” that occurred in Pennsylvania. Pizza shop owner Nikolas Galiatsatos allegedly attempted to sabotage two rival pizza shops by inserting bags of mice into the ceiling tiles of their bathrooms. In one restaurant, the owners became suspicious and alerted the police, who tracked Galiatsatos down. His business had been suffering and his home life was crumbling at the time of the attack. Though the term has been thrown around rather loosely, tampering with food has caused real harm in history. Here are some examples of real “food terrorism”:

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iPad Food Apps: Top of The Pops

Image credit: John Karakatsanis

Cooking iPad style is becoming wildly popular, possibly because the danger is addictive. Try propping your £400 treasure up near a full washing up bowl, while hacking at broccoli, swigging wine and attempting to follow a recipe, and you’ll see what I mean.

The iPad 2 is nearing its launch and an estimated 27 million iPads will be sold in 2011. With more than 60,000 available apps (six times the amount last summer), you may wonder which food apps to download. So, we’ve narrowed down ten of the best. How? Apple representative Ted Miller said the company doesn't do interviews about specific apps or app categories, but noted "food and drink apps held many of the top spots” in the Lifestyle category for overall iPad app downloads in 2010.

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Debunked: No 1. Fat Food Myth

Civil Eats

If you’ve not been following the gentle dismantling of 50 years worth of leap-of-faith healthy eating advice regarding fat, catch up now.

The low-fat trend finally appears to be on its way out. The notion that saturated fats are detrimental to our health is deeply embedded in our Zeitgeist—but shockingly, the opposite just might be true. For over 50 years the medical establishment, public health officials, nutritionists, and dieticians have been telling the American people to eat a low-fat diet, and in particular, to avoid saturated fats. Only recently, have nutrition experts begun to encourage people to eat “healthy fats.”

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