Hey ho!

Hey ho! Just thought I'd dash you a quick missive about what's going on. I'm here: on an island in rural Canada living on a commune.

There may be a slight change in content and delivery as a result: principally because the nearest electricity is far away from the van in the woods where I sleep and partly because I'll be cooking and eating fresh, seasonal locally sourced organic food instead of offal, undercooked street food and spontaneously fermented corn/cactus beverages.

But we can still be friends! It will be fun: I'll finish telling you about all the weird things I ate on my holiday and then I'll start telling you all about the weird food I'm making other people eat. Won't that be fun? Won't it?

OK! The library opens again on Tuesday so I'll let you know what's what then.

Kisses.

Ride the pony

Pony Malta is a deliciously sweet, semi-sparkling malt drink. It's super-refreshing and full of energy so it's perfect whether you are just waiting for a pig to eat an apple:

Watching the sex-frogs:

Or simply blacking up with a sex partner.

So Malty! So delicious! Pony!

Cola and indeed pola

Do you enjoy a refreshing glass of the popular drink lager and coke on a hot day? Do you ever try to replicate this in, say, a shopping precinct by trying to pour non-brand cola into a can of lager and back again like a demented alchemist until your wet legs and reedy high pitched cackling once again attract the attention of "security"? Fu¢k security! Buy Cola and pola, the first 2% lager/cola drink in a can.

It tastes like Danone Activia prune fruit layer bio yoghurt.

For a limited time only!

Print out and keep a copy of this voucher to recieve 50%* off corn and bacon in Pizza Hut.

* Terms and conditions apply. Offer only available in Pizza Hut, Foz de Iguazu, Brazil. For a limited time only. Corn and bacon subject to availabilty. No cash value. Not available in Northern Ireland.

Iguazu

Iguazu falls, Brazil: passionfruit tic tac shown for scale.

Cynar

Cynar (chi-nar-rei) is quite simply one of the best Italian artichoke liqueurs available in rural Argentina today. Enjoy with orange, soda or simply over ice. It tastes a little bit like paracetomal.

Toy story 2

Oh, you've got green eyes
Oh, you've got blue eyes
Oh, you've got closetog-eeeeether eyes

And I've never seen anyone quite like you before
No, I've never met anyone quite like you before

Dear Jamesmaster,

Dear Jamesmaster: I've recently purchased 4.8 litres of Hagmann white wine for £3.80. Unfortunately it tastes like sour sherry and it makes my insides burn like sin. What can I do? Should I just pour the whole thing down a storm drain and chalk it up to experience? Rinse off the dog's shampoo? Trade it for cigarettes with a vagrant?

Foolish tippler! The solution to your problem was right under your nose when your initial lack of attention in the face of a bargain first got you into this pickle. However, this oversight can be easily rectified with my help: simply return to to the supermarket and purchse, in order, a large bottle of soda water, a bag of party ice and a plastic jug. These forces combined can be used to make a "mega spritzer" powerful enough to tame the mighty Torrontes you have chosen to battle. Enjoy your fizzy sherry water young adventurer! Until the next time and the next morning...

So why is it called "Normal" Food and Drink?

Interestingly the "egg eyes" are made from cheese.

Rhodesia

They were going to call it Biafra, but it didn't test well in focus groups.

... who died today.

Bus seat, El Bolson, Patagonia.

Snack Innovation

I don't know why they had to invent a robot to wear a bandana and ride on a surfboard, but they did. Maybe he can surf for much longer than a human or the bandana is really, really heavy or something. Not sure how to check.

Machitos Bun are a maize based, cheese flavoured snack like Wotsits. They are so large that they have an airhole drilled through their centre to stop them from being a choking hazard.


They are fantastic.

Just like in Ireland!

The Fast Lunch Pub Galway used to be the world's most southerly pub until the Ukranian research station in Antarctica opened a vodka bar to make ends meet servicing passing cruise ships. This has left the Fast Lunch Pub Galway as the world's most southerly Irish theme pub.


Sadly we didn't have time for the Galway's Burger Egg as we had to race a block north to check out Bar Irlandais Irish Pub Dublin, the world's second most southerly Irish theme pub and the oldest Irish theme pub in Ushuaia.

They even have their own beer "Dublin by Beagle" which is green, just like in Ireland!

The Irish Pub Dublin offers the jewel in the crown of Patagonia's innovative egg-forward Irish cuisine: the Pizza Especial de Huevos / Eggy Pizza. This is a scone base pizza conventionally coated with tomato and cheese and garnished with olives, grated hard boiled egg and egg shell. I am not sure that grated hard boiled eggs are necessarily the "next big topping" of the pizza world (FWIW: chicken tikka or chives are my predictions, but I've been wrong before).

In Pastigonia

Cheese and Ham:

Meat and Egg:

Pastie Hawk:

Only four spaces remaining!

For the health and nutrition course Kate and I are teaching this summer. Book early to avoid disappointment!

A circuit of chitterlins

This man tells you everything you need to know about Buenos Aires and this man has pretty much said everything that needs saying about Argentine steak. What's left for me to do? Please enjoy some pictures of me eating goat chitterlings.

They really weren't very nice.

Not nice at all. And I like that sort of thing.

Sang's Special at Sang Sang, Aigburth, Liverpool

This is Aigburth Road, Liverpool, where I grew up. Specifically this is Sang Sang, a chip shop, commonly referred to as Sang Sang's. Sang Sang is the home of the Sang's special. The Sang's special is the most expensive item on the menu at Sang Sang. It costs £4.80. The prices in Sang Sang have not changed since 1996, when a potato shortage led to an increase in the price of chips.

The Sang's Special is served in two containers: the one larger one contains the Special and the smaller one contains either rice, chips or half rice half chips. The majority of chip shops in Liverpool serve chinese food; all meals in these chip shops may be served on a bed of rice, chips or half rice half chips. In this photo the smaller container contains only rice.

The Sang's Special consists of layers of chicken, beef and char-sui sitting atop a mixture of prawns, green pepper, beansprouts, water chestnuts and mushrooms. It is then finished with a fried egg and the takeaway tray is filled up with gravy. I believe that Sang Sang use Bisto brand gravy granules.

To eat the Sang's Special tip the rice/chips onto a large plate then open and invert the larger container onto the rice/chips. This allows any gravy that has pooled at the bottom of the tray to percolate back through the special and into the starch mound. Unfortunately this means that the fried egg is buried beneath the rest of the special; carefull jiggling can allow you reposition the egg on top of the special but this is far from easy.

The Sang Special represents excellent value for £4.80 as the generous portion is sure to sate even the largest appetite and the wide variety of ingredients means you could certainly say that it offers "something for everyone". I would highly recommend the Sang's Special to anyone who likes good Chinese food looking for a great meal to eat at home in Aigburth.

It has only just occurred to me that "the egg problem" could be solved thus: i) remove lid from both tray ii) transfer egg to larger lid using smaller lid for manouvering iii) invert starch tray iv) invert special tray v) replace egg using tray lids, as before. I wish I'd thought of this earlier.

No expenses

I find it extremely tedious and ennervating when people bang on about how "scary" and "sinister" clowns are. Total bullshit: if clowns were "terrifiying" and "deeply, deeply unsettling" then why would they be so perenially popular with children?

Curried Brains

From the Reader’s Digest Cookery Year (1976):

I think my favorite detail is that the choice of white or red grapes is left up to the chef. I think I'd do a 50/50 mix of the two. Love the fact that you serve with rice and toast.

Remember to remove those bone splinters people!

The Kingsly Amis Martini

"The best Dry Martini known to man is the one I make myself for myself. In the cold part of the refrigerator I have a bottle of gin and a small wine-glass half-full of water that has been allowed to freeze."

"When the hour strikes I half fill the remaining space with gin, flick in a few drops of vermouth, and add a couple of cocktail onions, the small, white, hard kind. Now that is a drink".

Kingers is emphatically not wrong on this one (except that what he has described is a Gibson rather than a martini): it is a drink. A very good drink.