Stomachs on legs are proud to present

There is no angle on TV show The Wire left to be mined. What does lake trout signify? Saptarshi Ray, for the Guardian writes:

Bunk, at his most unsavoury, it pains me to say, compares Jimmy to a recurring Baltimore speciality – lake trout – when he tries to clean up his act and settle down with Beadie. "They take something and give it a name to make it sound better, but it's still just a trash fish."

Lake trout makes many appearances throughout the programme, understandably, being a Maryland staple. When Marlo agrees to meet the honey-trap girl from the Barksdales it's at the Lake Trout restaurant. Randy likes a lake trout sub with cherry soda while on the campaign trail for Carcetti. In fact, lake trout is such a signifier of project life that when Brianna drops off some spicy fish of a different variety from a downtown restaurant for D and the boys, Wallace has no idea where it's from or what the big deal is. "If it ain't in the west side, I don't know it, yo."

Also, and not entirely unrelated, Snoop meets Anthony Bourdain; Bourdain eats lake trout.

The Chip Group a partnership between local industry groups and the New Zealand Heart Foundation focused on improving the nutritional profile of chips or chups.

Judging from their website* and giveaways they have received some serious funding.

*Note awesome chip wallpaper.

If you do decide to join up like me you will be privy to some pretty spectacular videos covering topics such as optimum "chip size", "oil temperature", "basket drainage" and of course "salt"

After watching seven amusing clips which cover topics such as THUCK cut CHUPS are BUTTAR for your HELF and that you should not use SKUNNY CHUPS. I aced the tests (sorry modules) and received my certificate for which I am very proud.

The Chip Group recommends printing your certificate off and showing your work mates. Which is exactly what I did but Chalong my sous chef burnt it on an open flame. Where is the respect.

The Chip Group is now busily sending my two nieces in Auckland (I used their address as I thought it would be asking a tad much to send the goodie bag to Bangkok)

1 bottle of Kiwi Style Tomato Sauce (6 muthafucken liters!!!)
1 bottle of Kiwi Style Tartar Sauce (Also 6 ltrs!!! BURP)
1 Jar Kiwi Style Deep Frying Baking Powder (2 kg!)
1 jar of Kiwi style Chicken Salt Seasoning (2.5 kg!!!!!!!!)
1 apron and t-shirt (hopefully size XXXL as the girls little Hello Kitty t-shirts will not fit them after eating 12 liters of heavily processed condiments)

It was not a complete waste of 30 minutes. I learnt that 2.5 thousand tons of fat is equal 632 elephants. WTF? Actually this is the total amount of fat that they wish to remove each year from the NZ populations diet by cooking a better chip which is not a bad idea if you have ever seen Maytels dads tummy.

Anyway the password for my membership was horsefat which the website never once referred to which is a shame really as it is a nice middle ground, bridging the worlds of high and low saturated fats and producing a pretty good chip.

Anyway...Ella and Liv enjoy the 2 kg of Kiwi Style Deep Frying Baking Powder.

A couple of years back I had a week in Ethiopia.

After the anglophone part of deep East Africa, Ethiopia felt a bit like Europe.

One of the reasons is that their lovely Italian style macchiato... not to mention Ethiopia's superb coffee.

I know there are plenty of bad things about colonization, but like French style café's and baguettes in Laos, the Europeans have left some yummy trails.

But the huge greasy spaghetti that came with a pile of fries was less European... was more African, for their love of carbo and fries.


After a couple of tries of European style dishes and having learned that they are huge carbo-grease bombs, I started to stick with Ethiopian food.

I was trying to de-meat my diet while in Ethiopia, having felt I had so much meat in East Africa.

Fish goulash was one of the few choices on regular days.

But on vegetarian days - the Ethiopian orthodox church sets two days a week as vegetarian days - the restaurants have nice vegetarian specials.


I had this in Lalibela. Several bean stews and salad.

I was in Lalibela for the Ethiopian Christmas. I sat down with a French photographer staying at the same lodge, who ordered himself some meat stew dish, but kept stealing my bean stew... I thought French men were nicer.


I had this deluxe one in Addis Ababa. I wish the vegetarian special was available seven days a week!

On our trip home to NZ, we visited the Coromandel with my mother and sister. I'd never been there in high summer before, so I was curious what all the hooha was about, on this iconic strip of kiwi coastline: including beaches like Hahei, Gemstone bay and Cathedral Cove.

I asked NZ techno producer and english teacher Simon Flower for a few tips, which ended up being worth their weight in gold. Hence I am republishing them here, along with my own photo evidence, for the benefit of any other prospective Coromandel holiday makers. Go forth, drink tea, swim with stingrays and eat short ribs. And don't miss the beer-battered fries (above): a very thin and crispy shell on those babies.

Simon's tips:

1. "Hahei beach. The left end is the money end, and is close to the shops, which have a great icecream shop! (behind the general store on the corner). Also at the left end you have a nice cliff side walkway up to the Cathedral Cove track: take your camera as it's a beautiful view from up there.

The view:



2. Cathedral Cove is stunning, but I'd also recommend popping down to Stingray bay on the walk to the Cove. At this time of year the Cove is PACKED, yet in Stingray Bay there is no one, people dont even take the time to walk 2 minutes off the track down to this glorious little bay. And yes, there are stingrays there! Both times I've been there I've seen stingrays swimming in the shallows.



3. Otara Bay. On the road to Hahei from Tairua, you pass a beach called 'sailors grave' on the left. If you go down to sailors grave you'll see a track to the left which goes around the left corner to Otara Bay (about a 10 minute walk). You can walk around the rocks too if you want. Beautiful bay, golden sand, and I bet you won't see anyone there.

4. Colenso Cafe. This is just outside of Whenuakite, near the turnoff for Hahei. Nice country style cafe/herbal tea joint, ladies love it.

(Note from ed: My mother did indeed love it. She purchased the 'crostini topping' below as a souvenir for my grandmother. Crostini topping in a jar...whatever next?)



5. There is a bar/restaurant next to the Ice-cream shop in Hahei called 'The Grange' (on Grange rd). They do these freakin amazing BBQ ribs. They come on a bed of wedges, so I'd change the order to make it BBQ ribs on their own, with a side of their beer-battered fries. Killer pub grub."

Ahh... fancy pub food, ankles scraped from snorkeling over boulders, herbal tea and jars of gussied up tomato stuff to spread on dry toasts... Thanks for the great tips Simon!
The Coromandel is splendid indeed.

Mofongo was introduced to me by my pen pal and fellow PhD freak Andy aka Mandevu.

Mandevu is a bit quiet on the blog front these days as he's also writing his thesis

One fortunate evening in Brooklyn Andy and his lovely wife Michelle (an ER doctor at a hospital in Brooklyn) took us out to a restaurant in their hood for some good old down to earth Dominican eats at El Gran Castillo De Jagua....during which Andy proclaimed his love of mofongo



Mofongo is mashed plantains with garlic and bacon

Mofongo with a side of fried plantains


It's pretty good, imagine mashed potatos with garlic and bacon but with a hint of banana flavour and there you have it. Here is a recipe I found but I cannot vouch for "authenticity" (it says Dominican mofongo...but who knows they could be lying?)

Mofongo Appreciator


We also had king fish in tomato sauce



and soup of the day - tripe



Plus chicken and beans and bread and there was some salad in there too, far too much food and the bill a mere $37.00 USD plus tips. A feast that could have fed another three to four South Koreans or five to six North Koreans to put it in McCain terms.


This place is right at the "Seventh Avenue" stop on the Q subway line.
Take the Brooklyn-bound Q train, and get off at the "7th Avenue" stop, and go up the right-hand stairway after you pass through the turnstyle, you'll be right next to the place (and smelling the meat already!). Easy to
find. Even if you went up the left-hand stairwell, you'd see the place right across the road.

I spent a half day in Amsterdam to catch up with my elementary school classmate and his wife. Since I don't know Amsterdam other than the cat boat on the canal and Van Gogh museum that I visited almost ten years ago, I let my friend pick a place for lunch.
.. and he took me to Intercontinental Hotel for its high tea.

Why???

He said, it's close to the canal and has a very "Amsterdam" view,,, and it's one of the few places in Holland that serves something somewhat refined. Hmm. He and his wife have been in Amsterdam for a little over a year now, and they have noticed that the majority of the Dutch didn't care if food was good or not.

So, here we are, on a cushy couch on a cushy carpet. Many of the tea servers were 20-something good looking young men, and I wonder if it's one of the attractions of this place. For some reason, they started us off with chocolate, which made me quickly full, then several different cakes, sandwiches, scones followed, while we had five or so refills of different kinds of tea.

While we just had tea, some tables were indulging in champagnes and strawberries. That was quite decadent.

Here's a plate that broke the feeling of decadence.
...did we forget to pack those in Japanese mom's obento's?

I guess it's the Dutch people's love of deep fried snacks, that they have vending machines selling deep fried foods... but I did not expect these fried foods to show up on the table at a high tea at Intercontinental Hotel.

The tea was finished off with a chocolate fountain, which you can dip your cream puffs. I was so full of sweets that I couldn't indulge in it, but my friend, who works for his family business of confectionery company, has the amazing capacity to eat all the sweet stuff.

After all, I am not sure if it was worth a huge bill of 133 euros for three people... but at least I can blog it.