AG: Aunt Granny's Advice, or How to become an elderly cyclist:

On Tue, 12 Jul 2016 23:44:38 -0300, Joy Beeson
wrote:

On Mon, 11 Jul 2016 06:28:12 +0700, John B.
wrote:

I talked to my resident rice expert and she says that to do what you
are talking about you boil the rice, as you say, when it is done to
your satisfaction then you drain off the boiling water and wash the
cooked rice in cold water several times. She says at least 2 or 3
times and she emphasized it must be COLD water, she even mentioned ice
cubes in the water.

I did run a little cold water over the rice, but not a lot. Black
Japonica has a hull on it; I suspect that the ice-water suggestion is
for white rice.

Hull on it? I think that it is not polished and has a sort of brownish
or maybe blackish "bran layer and the germ". Ian't that is what may be
called "brown rice" in the U.S., and "red rice" here. It is supposed
to be more healthy than polished rice.

It was silly of me to experiment with Black Japonica, because I'll
probably never see another package of it -- but it did get rid of the
little dab that was left. Black Japonica makes great porcupine* loaf,
but I no longer put starch in my meatloaf. Minced vegetables work
great.

(*My personal term for meat loaf made with rice instead of bread,
because of a rice-meatball recipe teen-age cooks adored in the
fifties.)

The salad turned out well as far as the rice goes, but needs a little
more spice. I think that tomorrow, if I can stand to set foot outside
(It *will* be four Fahrenheit degrees cooler.), I'll pick the youngest
pods off the mustard plants and stir them in.

It was better when I tasted it just now than it was this morning; the
flavor of the feta has had a chance to spread.


On Sat, 09 Jul 2016 23:55:20 -0300, Joy Beeson
wrote:


9 July 2016

Grumble, gripe. I was reaching for the ginger root when I noticed
that it was USDA organic.

I couldn't find horseradish either, but when I stopped at Marsh on the
way back from today's impromptu trip to the dentist, I found both pure
horseradish and fresh ginger. And the bagged radishes I'd looked for
in vain on my last few trips to Owen's. It says "red radish" on the
receipt; I'll have to look around on my next trip to Marsh (in August,
please!) to see what other colors Marsh sells.

Here, "ginger" means ground dry ginger, mostly used in a sweet spice
cake we call "gingerbread"; fresh roots are intermittently available,
and it's only in this century that fresh ginger has been available at
all. There's usually a sign up saying that it's good in oriental
dishes.

I put two teaspoons of ground ginger in a quart of switchel. It
smelled like a lot when I put it in, but I can't taste it in the
finished product. I also added a squirt of honey, but all I can taste
is rice. I plan to add the lemon at the last minute, since we have a
stick blender, it won't have to marinate like the slices of lemon in
the water for today's trip. One bottle going, one coming, about two
and a half miles each way. I undressed into the washing machine and
took a shower.

Ginger beer was a bit of a fad here among those that brew their own
beer. The recipe was sugar, water, yeast, and a little bit of ginger
root. Put it in a pot and as soon as it stops bubbling drink it :-) I
tried a batch and thought it was a bit tasteless and the next batch I
doubles the amount of ginger. So spicy that you couldn't stand to
drink it.

( mentioned this to my wife who sort of looked down her nose and
muttered that "everyone knows that" :-)

(It turned out, by the way, that the chip was a piece of my temporary
bridge, not my tooth. Dr. slapped a patch on it and we hope it will
hold until September. I promised to cut my sandwiches into pieces in
the meantime.)

What happens in September?
--
cheers,

John B.