Galanz bread maker MB15001 in yellow, max 750g loaf, Made in China
Kicked to the curb, this little Galanz bread maker MB15001A was. I could tell it was clean and little used. This little ditty did not need much work to get working, apart from brushing off some snow. I just plugged it in and it started beeping at me, telling me to feed it. Is this “Made in China” product any good?
Dark rye flour, 10kg bag, from Grain Process Enterprises, Toronto, $12.50. Underwhelming store, but adequate.
I have been baking bread for a good 9 months now, using white wheat flour and whole grain wheat. While it is nice, I’ve gotten tired of it. Many European people seem to really like rye in their breads. I do like rye bread as well, which has a very different taste. I searched for a source of rye here in Toronto, and found Grain Process Enterprises in Scarborough.
It seems almost quaint: Live so you are comfortable but still not deplete the world’s resources. This is called doughnut economics. The third world should strive to bring up their standard of living, but the first world should not live beyond their means and deplete the world’s resources. Huh?
Amsterdam Doughnut Economics
It seems pretty reasonable, really. China, India and other poorer countries strive to economically improve and pull people out of poverty. That can only be a good thing. But then you have the first world countries consuming way beyond their means, because they are rich and because they can. As China and India improve, why should they not also consume beyond the earth’s means as well? The reason is that the world will then be depleted and we, as a species, will all suffer.
This is not NoFrills but an example of their line of cashiers. The single line queue for a cashier would start where the photographer is standing. This results in significant delays and increased risk to shoppers. This has discouraged me from shopping at NoFrills and going to other grocery chains, which offer similar prices and sales, more convenience and less risk of contracting the CoVid-19 virus.
A neighbour gave me a freshly baked sourdough bread, and then some starter. I like sourdough’s flavour, and had been thinking about trying it, but hesitated on the 5 day wait for the starter to get going.
There are many variables when dealing with natural yeast. Ambient temperature plays an important role. The sourdough’s naturally occurring yeast takes time to rise. My first bread took 6 hrs, and I felt it needed more time.
Jing Teng Chinese Restaurant, Mexico City, 19.399062,-99.131813, Google Maps, Street View
A friend sent me his GPS coordinates from Mexico City. I thought I’d verify that both GPS and Google Maps works as intended.
Plus Code: 76F29VX9+J7
GPS: 19.399062,-99.131813
境腾港式茶餐厅 jing4teng gang3shi4 can1ting1
Jing Teng
Sur 65-A 3256, Viaducto Piedad, Iztacalco, 08200 Ciudad de México, CDMX, Mexico
It is a bit odd that the restaurant’s sixth character seems to be written incorrectly on the large blue sign, but is written properly on the white cloth sign above it. The blue sign only used the top right side of the character for “餐” can1.
Flippant, I was, when I was younger, when I said the way to reduce your weight is to simply eat less. In a way I was right, but in my naivety I did not know the complexity of the problem. Age has a way of providing more wisdom to the problem. It turns out that I am not alone, as the percentage of obese people in the Western world is now alarming and rising. This is a big problem that needs to be solved.
Sometimes you need to recognize that a system is broken and not as helpful as our expectations. The Western medical system is one such system. Yes, we are living longer, with viruses and bacteria largely at bay. As we progress to better health, chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, heart failure, diabetes and obesity have become much more prevalent. These chronic diseases show little abatement with current guidelines. “Lose weight, reduce salt intake, exercise more” may be medically valid advice, but the words are much easier to say and harder to implement.
The standard practice is to eat breakfast every day. The saying “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” has been drilled into my tiny brain since birth. For me it just was not so important. Over the years I have deviated from this breakfast practice on many occasions, mostly without issue. I say mostly because I often inadvertently delay until well past lunch. This is the 16/8 fast, don’t eat for 16 hrs a day, but eat for only 8. It is not as radical as you might think, as most of the time you are asleep.
Achiote paste: A unique Mexican flavour, but if it dries to a brick, is very difficult to break back down to a paste.
Big Weed had purchased this in California, as we do not have access to this here in Toronto. Achiote paste has a very unusual taste which I like. As I only used a half of the small pack I did not know to tightly wrap it so that it did not dry out. The result was a brick that was as hard as rock. Instead of wasting the achiote brick, which I cannot buy here in Toronto, I decided to try to break it down back to smaller chunks of near powder. This was more difficult than I thought.
