Stomachs on legs are proud to present

Personally I hate vegemite. I would have used Marmite. But to Nickos credit he does use ifuckup 2.0 or better known as Vegemite Cheesybite. Oh and mild cheese and a pre made base adds to Nickos pizza which is most likey to get VPN status any day now.

From last weekend's edition of the Dominion Post here in Wellington, NZ:

In 1987, Saroun Lach was one of 50 or so Cambodian refugees on a plane from Thailand, headed for New Zealand.
Mr Lach became New Zealand's champion pie maker, several times over. The walls of his Wellington Elite Cafe and Bakery in Victoria St provide a gallery for 30 framed awards, stretching back to 2000, the year he became a pie maker.

As a boy, he had been a top scholar. In New Zealand, he became first a wool sorter and later a taxi driver. Mr Lach had a fondness for a daily pie, but was very critical of many he ate, comparing one with another, and thinking that the best were few and far between.

When a bakery shop came up for sale in Alicetown, at the urging of his mother-in-law he bought it. He won Bakel's Supreme Piemaker of New Zealand, a title he would win again, along with many others. His steak, mince and cheese pies became a rapid urban legend.

He loved music, movies and his family.

He was considered a role model of industry and good citizenship in the Buddhist community. Paying tribute to him, his brother-in-law said his love would be "the roof above our heads to shelter us from storms to come".

In other words, Mr Lach will be tending that big crimped and fluted pie top in the sky.

Generally, if you try and pull this sort of shit, they label you a survivalist - but I guess femivore is a little more genteel. The NY Times invents a new word:

Femivorism is grounded in the very principles of self-sufficiency, autonomy and personal fulfillment that drove women into the work force in the first place. Given how conscious (not to say obsessive) everyone has become about the source of their food — who these days can’t wax poetic about compost? — it also confers instant legitimacy. Rather than embodying the limits of one movement, femivores expand those of another: feeding their families clean, flavorful food; reducing their carbon footprints; producing sustainably instead of consuming rampantly. What could be more vital, more gratifying, more morally defensible?

You're only one bug out bag short of a Unabomber.

It has been two months since I landed in the frozenland.

After having lived on compromised choices of food for several days, such as:

Absolutely horrible mapo tofu at an American Chinese place, and


a tacos plate that does not taste as good as it looks...


I have started cooking in the limited kitchenette shared with several others:


No full stove.
Just two induction cooktops that use magnetic heat.
There was only one right after I arrived, and I insisted to the landlord that we need one or two more.

One of the first things I cooked was chana masala:


I get the MDH spice mix at an Indian/Latin American grocery store.

Pretty soon I started attacking the bulk section of the Whole Foods Market and a European style bakery that has French and German style bread.

Tomato-based chick pea soup with German rye bread:


Tabbouleh with green lentils:



Chana masala again, with carrots/green lentils/raisins salad:


No picture, but I have also been cooking green split pea soup, 16-bean soup, red lentil dhal, and tofu dishes.

I am having a lot of fun with beans and peas, yes.