Today I made garlic bread.

You add flour, water, salt, and most importantly, yeast. When baking bread, you have to let the dough rise.

No reasonable intervention will significantly increase the speed the dough rises for really good bread, possibly the best bread in the world.

This lunch is 500 yen ($4.80) at Sukiya, a Japanese fast food restaurant which belongs to a category with about three big competitors.

I love the aesthetics of this category and they’re under remarked upon.

I think people underestimate QSRs in terms of social utility, but Sukiya et al describe themselves as mission-oriented enterprises. I believe this is largely sincere, and goes back to the 60s and 70s, when the clientele was primarily manual laborers who had migrated to work.

Japan was not a rich nation at the time, and day laborers in particular were both unlikely to be able to cook for themselves and unlikely to have much of a food budget, and so the chains sprung up offering an honest-to-goodness cooked meal delivered in under a minute for cheap.

This heritage continued over the years, even after Japan became a much more wealthy nation, and these chains function as social support and dignity for folks in diminished circumstances.

They also are a wee bit of a cartel, and I appreciate the aesthetics of the cartel:

Back when I was first in Japan, in the mid 2000s, there was an increase in the price of beef.

And the heads of the three chains got together, and decided that the price of the basic beef bowl needed to increase, but given the economic circumstances how could they hold the line.

10 Manfaat Baking Soda untuk tanaman.

Ternyata selain untuk bahan pengembang roti. Baking soda juga bisa bermanfaat untuk tanaman.

Apa aja manfaatnya?

Lanjut....

1. Baking soda digunakan utk mengetes tingkat keasaman (Ph) tanah. Ambil sesendok tanah dr kebun dan basahi dengan air minum dan percikkan segenggam baking soda ke bagian tanah yang basah. Jika tanah mulai berbuih, artinya tingkat keasaman tanah kebun Anda lebih rendah dari 5.

2. Lenyapkan hama siput dari kebun dengan menaburkan baking soda. Siput akan mengering dan mati.

3.Jamur di tanaman juga bisa diusir dengan baking soda. Cukup campurkan 4 sendok makan baking soda ke dalam 1 galon air yang akan digunakan untuk menyiram tanaman. Lebih murah dan kandungan zat kimianya lebih rendah ketimbang pembasmi jamur yang lain.

4/ Untuk Anda yang suka membuat kompos dari sampah basah, masukkan baking soda ke dalam wadah kompos Anda untuk mengurangi baunya.

We all need a lift & a distraction. This calls for a recipe.

Chicken with Preserved Lemon and Olives

Few ingredients, easy to throw together, this flavorful dish tastes as good as it looks.

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1/

INGREDIENTS

1 preserved lemon
1 fresh lemon for finely grated zest (optional) & 2 tablespoons juice
@ 6 tablespoons (40 grams) flour seasoned with salt & pepper
1 chicken cut in pieces or 2 leg/thigh sections & 2 breasts
A few tablespoons olive oil

MORE

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2/

1 onion, trimmed, peeled, chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled & chopped
½ cup green olives, soaked in cold water for about an hour
½ cup (125 ml) water
Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Cut the preserved lemon in half & then each half in 2 or 4 wedges. Set aside.

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3/

Finely grate the zest from the fresh lemon, if using (the zest is optional for a more lemony flavor) & then squeeze the lemon for 2 tablespoons juice. Set aside.

The olives should be soaking in water.

Place the seasoned flour in a plate or wide shallow soup bowl.

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4/

Pat the chicken pieces clean & dry.

Place a few tablespoons olive oil in a large, heavy pot with a lid & heat over medium to medium-high heat. When the oil is hot and a few drops of water spritzed onto the oil sizzle, dredge the chicken pieces in the seasoned flour,

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I’m clearly feeling slightly better as I’ve just spent a good ten minutes being furious about all the wrong trifles on the internet.

Excuse me, BBC Good Food?

This is an abomination.

There should be trials at The Hague for these.

*shakes head*