a robot that cooks

Read on China Daily that a retired professor in Beijing developed a robot chef.

Apparently the robot chef was able to prepare his favorite dishes: "...takes only a few minutes for the computer-based robot to cook a delicious meal for me with well-prepared foods, vegetables and meat," said Liu Changfa.

At least 200 persons from his community in Changping District of Beijing had tasted the food the robot chef whipped up and according to one..."food as delicious as that made (cooked?) by a well-trained chef".

What a convenient gadget to have when old and for those who dislike cooking or disabled. No matter, I'd rather cook up something for self...unless going into food and beverage business?!

eggplant

flower and its fruit (posted the day after)

.....

Eggplant is also known as aubergine (British and French) and brinjal (Asian).

Varieties: round or long ones; white or purple or gold color skin -- the skin of the young is tender but the mature and huge ones are thick and not for eating.

Eggplant has good source of dietary fiber and potassium.

The vegetable can be baked, steamed, microwaved, bbq or sautéed. When baking it whole, pierce the eggplant several times with a fork to make small holes for the steam to escape.

These are ways of eating this vegetable which I've tried at restaurants:

• sauté with garlic and soy sauce with a dash of sugar;
• sauté with minced pork/prawns/dried prawns and chili;
• deep fried – coat in batter – taste sweet and soft (Japanese are excellent for this);
• steam or fried with a spread of fishcake on a slice;
• some in Thailand eat that raw dipped in chili and prawn-paste with glutinous rice (didn’t dare try when offered during my Northern Thailand trip recently);
• cooked in curry sauce, especially in fish-head curry (Indians and Peranakans);
• … Do you have more to add or any to recommend?

(How strange: Unable to download photos from my photo album but able to download borrowed images from the internet.)

white sesame flowers and pods

Furry white blooms

I enjoy sesame candies (white or black) and, sesame oil for frying chicken with ginger dish or adding a dash of sesame oil to the instant packet or cup noodle whose fragrance (mmmm...) uplifts my appetite.

Wonder what the flowers look like for the black sesame?

vegan foods

A vegan movement? Vegetarian foods? For healthy eat?

You will find such foods in the Chinese temples. These dishes served are expensive!

The food consists of mocked meat -- pork, beef, chicken -- made out of flour and gluten and they taste almost like the real stuff. Very few varieties are made from soy bean or in bean curd form.

Personally I have yet to acquire the taste for such foods.

I still like my food in its pure and real form. I love the taste of a good piece of beef steak, chicken chop or Hainanese chicken rice, pork stew in black sauce or the German way of cooking the pig's trotters with sauerkraut...!

Food...food...glorious food. I just love eating...tastefully and aesthetically served food!

organic food

What's the hype about organic food these days? What is organic food? It's priced more expensive than the ordinary food in the supermarket.

Apparently organic foods and substances are all natural i.e. grown, raised and handled without conventional harmful chemicals, artificial fertilizers or sewage sludge and pesticides on organic farms.

The animals reared without regular use of antibiotics, growth hormones and fed on organic foods i.e. eat organic grains and other products for over a year to qualify as organic substance!

Foods processed without ionizing radiations and without a wide range of food addictives...not genetically modified organisms...?!

How do the farmers manage then? Wouldn't it be more labor-intensive and time-consuming to produce and, upkeep more arduous for these farmers?

What exactly is this organic food movement? How beneficial is this to our health? Or is this a myth to do with choosing an eco-lifestyle than safer or more healthy products?

How does one distinguish between organic and natural products?

instant noodles

I enjoy cup instant noodle (created in 1971) for it's easy to prepare: adding hot water to dried noodles in a waterproof polystyrene container -- especially when I do not have time to go out for lunch or when I crave for hot soupy noodles. (Ok...I know this is not healthy food!)

Read from BBC news (6th instant) that the inventor of instant noodles, Mr Momofuku Ando (photo right by courtesy of BBC news), died of heart attack at age 96 in Japan.

Born in Taiwan in 1910 and moved to Japan in 1933, he founded the Nissin Food Products company after WWII to provide cheap food for masses. He was inspired when he witnessed people queueing to buy bowls of hot ramen noodle soup at a black market stall during the time of food shortage in WWII.

The first instant noodle came into market in 1958 and is popular in East Asia. Sometimes when I'm lazy to cook for dinner for one, I'd take a packet of instant noodle and add some vegetables and an egg! Viola!

In 2005, the firm developed a version of cup noodle for Japanese astronauts to eat on space shuttle.