Chicken a la Zoffé

February 16th, 2021

Time for some more ‘lockdown cooking’! Today’s it’s an original recipe of my own creation. It’s a little complicated, but if you follow the instructions closely you can eat some too…

Start by throwing some chopped onions in a pan. Cook them on medium heat for a while.

When they’re somewhat cooked, add cubed chicken. The amount is up to you but for one portion I use two tenders. Salt liberally with kosher salt.

Walk away and forget you’re cooking until the onions start to burn, then add pineapple chunks. Cook for only about a minute longer just to brown the pineapple.

At this point the basmati rice you’ve been cooking in the background is ready, so it’s time to plate up and serve!

It’s a dish with a good mouth feel and a delightful mix of salty and sweet tastes. It also looks – as you can see – attractive on the table.

To increase the enjoyment, I recommend serving with Mt Dew.

As a bonus shot, here’s KLS’s paneer tikamasala she cooked alongside my Chicken Zoffè:

Which would you prefer?

Posted in Blog, Food | 2 Comments »

Ronald

February 13th, 2021

If you don’t think too much about it, Ronald McDonald may seem like little more than the happy-faced mascot of the worlds most delicious restaurant. He’s been bettering our lives since 1963, and after so long we’ve probably started taking him for granted.

But could there be more to his story? In those sixty-odd years this benevolent ‘clown’ has often demonstrated powers beyond the normal, and his fame has grown to truly extraordinary levels. He has transcended burgers and fries, and become a near-integral part of the tapestry of our daily lives.

He goes by multiple names (the Japanese call him Donald), and at times switches his gender. He can speak every language on earth and can play every instrument. He used to live in a fantasy world with sentient food, owns a spaceship and has a variety of magical powers that include the ability to produce delicious hamburgers from his trousers.

I know what you’re saying: ‘But he’s not real!’

This is of course the assumption we all make, because how could he be? And yet those who perhaps know him best – the McDonald’s corporation – have never said this. Quite the contrary in fact: in both 1995 and 2011 the company wouldn’t answer questions about how many Ronald ‘actors’ there were (“There’s only one Ronald McDonald.”) and in 2016 when he was ‘retired’ (due to the ‘creepy clown phenomenon’) they simply said he was now focusing on other things. He’s still ‘out there’ was the implication.

He’s become much bigger than his McDonald’s origins. Completely aside from the comics and books and toys and games and tv shows and even movies, he’s one of the most famous ‘people’ we all know, and his smiling appearance always bring with it happiness, hope, and a good meal. He’s become an idol around the world, and it was famously reported in 1995 that he was more recognizable in a worldwide poll than Jesus.

More recognizable than Jesus.

For various reasons we don’t see much of him these days but his memory lives on. I suspect he does as well, and is simply biding his time awaiting a triumphant return. Maybe next time his form will be different and perhaps at first we won’t recognize him. But his powers are vast and his message – eat my burgers – too seductive to ignore. I suspect in time we will once again accept – and indeed love – him as we once did.

The stakes are too high not to. A world without Ronald is a world without McDonalds. And is that any sort of world at all?

Posted in Art, Celebrity, Food, Miscellaneous, The Unknown | 1 Comment »

Ramen 3: Return of Chicken!

February 9th, 2021

You better believe I found some more chicken ramen, so let’s dive right in:

Dr McDougall’s Vegan Ramen (180 Calories, 1g fat, 680 mg sodium)

This was purchased from Whole Foods and as you can see is a healthy option for those that shun flesh. But could it be good with so little fat and sodium? The cup was strangely lightweight, and when I opened it I could hardly believe what I beheld: the so-called ‘ramen’ looked and felt much more like dried spaghetti! Preparation was the same as any other type of cup noodle, and even though I followed the instructions precisely the noodles remained almost completely solid. I was even more suspicious they weren’t ramen!! So I followed the additional instructions for those who desired softer noodles and microwaved it for 60 seconds…

It was, as you can see, a disaster! To make matters worse the noodles were still mostly uncooked! I tried it anyway and the taste was acceptable but that doesn’t forgive the fact this ‘ramen’ is a fraud marketed by criminals and if I ever see ‘Dr McDougall’ in my travels he can look forward to a strong lunge punch to his rectus abdominus! My review of this product: 0/10

Gefen Noodle Soup (300 Calories, 13g fat, 1200 mg sodium)

Another option for vegetarians, this is an unusual product that never calls itself ramen but most definitely is. It’s made in Singapore and has information about Australian importing on the back so the Ozlings reading this may want to watch for it.

The noodles were strangely white and the flavor/veggie packets were similar to others I’ve already tried with the exception of dried onion pieces being included. Once again preparation was as easy as steeping with boiling water for a few minutes.

And then I tried it. There’s not much more to say other than it’s hard to believe I’ll ever taste better! This is an absolutely exquisite cup noodle product, with a robust and slightly peppery chicken taste (despite containing no chook) and perfect noodles that tickle the cockles on their way down. If they serve ramen in heaven, surely it’s this brand. An easy 10/10!

Maruchan Bowl (420 Calories, 19g fat, 1640 mg sodium)

I’ve already written about the brick and normal cup noodle from this brand, so it was time for this giant-sized bowl product. And it’s not just more of the same, since the topping packet also contains dehydrated chicken pieces for that authentic chicken soup feeling. As usual, just pour in boiling water and wait patiently for three minutes before eating.

And the end result: better than both the brick and the normal cup! The taste was more robust than the others, and while I’m sure the chicken pieces were essentially flavorless they gave me an extra sense of satisfaction as I shoved the noodles down. But in the end this was perhaps a little too much food for a culinary dilettante like myself and I didn’t finish it. I think 8/10 is fair.

And that’s enough for the third installment in this now regular series! A quick glance in my cupboard confirms that there will indeed be (at least) a fourth set of reviews coming in due course, so watch this space 🙂

Posted in Blog, Food | 2 Comments »

The Hidden!

February 6th, 2021

At the risk of making this a stamp blog, here’s another brief post about something I just discovered. I was reading an article in the latest issue of Gibbons Stamp Monthly about phosphor inks used on stamps. Usually this is so the automatic machines can read the stamps, but it’s sometimes for artistic reasons as well. Apparently it used to be more common, but is still occasionally done today.

So I got the 300+ postcards I’ve received from postcrossing and looked at them under a UV light. Here’s what I found:

Many Russian stamps contain these phosphorescent ‘threads’ embedded in the stamp. They don’t seem to have any sort of pattern and I can’t discern their use for identification or artistic reasons. Even stranger I saw many cases of the same stamps either having or not having them. Weird.

Most Finnish stamps bear a silhouette of the country which, under UV light, is overprinted with the euro sign!

Here’s a Chinese stamp with a hidden UV element connecting various parts of the art. You can also see a number printed in phosphorescent ink on the stamp. This is very common in Chinese stamps, and I don’t know if it is done when the stamp is printed or as some sort of cancellation after mailed.

Cleverly, the UK Sherlock stamp series from a few years ago overprinted a series of words much like how the show used a similar method to show Sherlocks thoughts. As you can see the words are not very vibrant in the above pic, and this may be because the stamp is older. I found for instance that in the case of Russian stamps the ‘threads’ were more distinct on newer stamps so perhaps the inks fade over time?

The best example – by far – that I found on the postcards I checked were on these Chinese stamps, on which you can see the skeletons overprinted in red phosphorescent ink under UV light. It’s extremely clear and crisp, and looks amazingly good. This was actually the very first postcard I shone the light on, and I was both astonished by what I saw and very excited to see what I’d find on others. Alas I soon discovered the UV overprints were rare indeed and never as flashy as this one.

So if you have a UV light and a bunch of older postcards why not shine it on them and see what you can see? There may be a few hidden secrets you missed the first time around 🙂

Posted in Art, Stamps, The Unknown | Comments Closed

Train Stamps

February 4th, 2021

It’s time for some more stamps! This time, trains:

I didn’t actually choose these when I did my order. I chose another topic that it turns out was out of stock, so (at my request) these were substituted. They were very inexpensive: I think about $3 for 100?

The pack contained slightly over 100 stamps, and I forgot to take a photo of them all together! So here I’ll showcase the stamps from some (but not all) of the countries. They seem to be mostly issued between 1980 and 2000.

As with mushrooms and dinosaurs, almost all of these are CTO stamps, which means machine canceled and unused. They come from the same countries as well; and my guess is very few of any of these were ever sold for actual postage use.

Take Mongolia for instance, a country not known for its rail heritage. The stamps are pretty enough, but the likelihood is they were printed in Europe or the USA under license from some Mongolian government office who likely had nothing at all to do with their design. I wonder could I take these to Mongolia, put them on a postcard, and expect it to arrive?

The same can be said for Burkina Faso:

And São Tomé:

And North Korea:

Cuba is of note since they issued a series of CTO stamps celebrating Japanese bullet trains!?! One can only imagine this was done to market to Japanese collectors:

And of course let’s not forget Kampuchea/Cambodia, which based on the contents of this pack has issued a ludicrous amount of train stamps. Given the then-recent history of that country, I’m slightly surprised ‘they’ issued so many CTO stamps:

The above stamps are from the Soviet Union, and the one on the lower left was used (it’s a real postmark and the stamp has no gum). I assume the USSR issued CTOs (almost every country has) but as far as I can tell the above are all ‘real’ stamps issued for actual postal use. My favorite stamp in the packet is the top left one above, which also happened to be the most monochromatic!

The Czech stamp on the left above has also been used, and at least one (and probably both) of the Romanian ones on the right was as well. Both of these are examples from larger issues, which supports my theory that these are ex-post rather than just bought from a wholesaler.

So in a packet of 100+ stamps it seems only three were actually used. This is not surprising given the nature of the product, but given that trains as a topic ate so popular I would have liked to see a few more examples of ‘real’ train stamps from around the world! My pack of Australian stamps for instance contained several, and the USA has issued well over 100 train stamps during the last 75 years.

Who knows… maybe the next pack of stamps I open might have some trains in it! What will that pack be? Find out next month 🙂

Posted in Collecting, Otaku, Stamps | Comments Closed

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