Sparkie's Junkyard » food

Blind tasting – cooking risotto with Mark

Sparkie — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 19:38:05 +0000

Lat night Mark cooked risotto, while I directed, encouraged, took photos and drank beer. The recipe and photo-diary are below:

Mountain lodge

Sparkie — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:58:43 +0000

Moving away from the heat, tonight I’m staying in the countryside at a mountain lodge operated by the National Taiwan University. We had a beautiful (unfortunately camera-free) sunset, followed by some fantastic food:

Earlier in the day however, we were slightly hotter. Niels and I were sampling in a river valley in the full sun, at 34 degrees and near 100% humidity. I’m now drinking my sixth litre of water for today. Sampling from 10.00 until 4.30, we have managed to get 40-odd samples which should give me plenty to do back in Cambridge, and if the results are ok a chapter of my thesis. Sounds scary talking about that sort of thing, but it’s a reality I am having to face up to quite quickly.

Rob 2 Merde 1

Sparkie — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:19:22 +0000

Three days down, two days in the lab, and still just the one merde incident. I feel like keeping a track of the number of times I successfully dance across the pavement, avoiding another well-laid trap. However, keeping score like this is fruitless; if I score a point each time I avoid some, I effectively lose a million points each time I fail.

On a lighter note, the food today has been great. For lunch we had the plat-du-jour at a local Spanish restaurant, a fantastic paella stuffed with chicken, prawns and saffron. Back in the lab the lasers are switching between playing ball and playing up, but data is appearing quickly at least and I will have plenty to keep me busy over the winter. This evening I wandered around the Christmas-lit city centre with Lauren (who is being paid to do a masters here!) but unfortunately it was raining and I’d left my camera at the hotel, so pictures will have to wait until another night.