Slight Return

Blimey. Have I been neglecting this blog that long? Yes, I have. Shame on me, etc.

Even now I haven’t really got anything too exciting to add, so I’ll go through the motions instead, with a few links, loose ends, thoughts and queries.

1. Where in London can I buy a two-litre bottle of groundnut oil? I’ve tried Tescos, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s, plus a plethora of local food emporiums. All to no avail.

2. Note to self: If you’re devising your own recipe for Laksa, don’t go overboard on the shrimp paste. You”ll only end up tainting an expensive pot of fresh scallops with a broth that tastes like the unwashed floor of a downmarket fishmonger.

3. Dealaz has launched. This is the UK version of the excellent Dealazon service, and although it’s looking pretty beta at the moment (What? No kitchenware? Are you mad?), it’ll be worth keeping a close eye on.

4. Try out Protopage. It’s a very nice homepage tool. I wish it supported XML feeds.

5. I’ve finally decided that Konfabulator is a piece of crap. Great idea, but let’s try and build something a little less processor-intensive next time, shall we?

6. I thoroughly recommend the wines of the Mount Rozier vineyard in South Africa.

7. I tried another of HFW‘s recipes, this time for Herb Roast Chicken. Highly recommended and great fun, kind of Blue Peter cooking. In a nutshell, you rub butter and a few English herbs all over a chicken (inside and out), roast for 20 minutes at a high temperature, baste, add a glass of wine to the roasting dish, reduce the temperature, cook for another half-hour, then turn off the heat, open the oven door and leave for twenty minutes. After this you carve the chicken roughly, letting the pieces fall into the buttery sauce. Then eat. Lovely crispy skin. Works well with mash.

8. Someone else made a Scotch Ostrich Egg.

9. On Google UK, blogjam is the sixth result if you search for Pork Pie, and the second for Steak Tartare. This is higher than Delia Smith. Or Ainsley Harriot.

10. Unfortunately, I’m also the third result if you search for small penis blog. And they say Google knows everything about its users…

11. A friend of mine asked if I’d like to cook something using her breast milk – she had some frozen away. I declined.

12. As I write, there have been over 56,000 comments left on blogjam over the years. I have deleted more than 48,000 as spam.

13. Kittenwar got recommended by a saucy-looking reporter at the BBC. Perhaps I can use use the magical power of kittens to woo lovely geek ladies. Or any lady, for that matter.

14. If I ever make my fortune from that site I’m going to start referring to myself as a pussy magnate.

Boom boom.

22 Comments

  1. I’m glad you spotted it, but I can confirm that the Kittenwar feature was broadcast across the globe last week! I, for one, saw it in whilst watching BBC World in a hotel in Tallinn. Quite a nice demonstration of how the site works, all very matter of fact. Very impressive. Has site traffic from far flung places increased?

  2. Groundnut oil – have you tried the Uxbridge Road in Shepherd’s Bush – I think I saw some in Al Abbas the other day.

    Good work on the kittenwar front.

  3. Groundnut oil – I’d try one of the chinese supermarkets.

  4. I did try Wing Yip at the weekend, but they didn’t seem to have any in stock… will try Chinatown, then Uxbridge Road. Thanks!

  5. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t clicked on your “small penis blog” link, and been curious enough to check out the “entry” (sorry!) 2 down from yours…

    how I’ll remove that image heaven only knows!

    RP
    x

  6. why not buy 2 one litre bottles and put them in a two litre bottle? What are you planning exactly? Does it involve criminal activity?

  7. I’m planning to deep-fry, and I want to know why it’s hard to find this oil in the kind of quantities you need to do so. Why? WHY?

  8. Hoo Hing Chinese Cash and Carry on the North Circular, just past Hanger Lane. – they have every ingredient known to man, particularly Oriental man, and in quantities that go up to the industrial – you’ll probably find 444 gallon drums of it if you ask.
    Live eels too -mmm!

  9. Kon-flab-ulator is a bit of a monsta. I uninstalled it for the same reasons. Plus It seemed very beta and locked up my windows a few times.

  10. Hi Fraser,

    Groundnut (peanut) oil is traditionally used by Chinese cooks, but most Chinese restaurants now use vegetable oil – the two key reasons for this are a) vegetable oil is supposed to be safer for diners, b) it’s cheaper than groundnut. Hence, why large containers of groundnut oil are getting scarcer.

    All the best,


    Ian

  11. Thanks Ian. I just found a nice large container in Chinatown. Quest over.

  12. Heh, yeah I can say that your Kittenwar website is truly famous – it was on the ‘tech special’ TV3 news had here in New Zealand a few months back. I actually recorded it for some reason.

    Then it went on to show the doberman/poodle disguise kit too. I suspect someone up in the ranks there gets the b3ta newsletter – quite a lot of b3ta stuff gets shown as a curio/current internet meme thing/internet feature they do every now and then.

  13. Why exactly are you recommending that dealaz website? It’s just somebody’s Amazon.co.uk affiliate site!

    Are you taking a cut of the profits? ;)

  14. I wish I were, but no. Of course it’s someone’s affiliate site, but the US version of the site is the by far the most useful implementation of the technology I’ve seen – some of the savings are frightening.

  15. Were you running the latest version of Konfabulator? Some significant changes were made recently in the 2.xx release. I’ve run it for over a year now on my Macs without issue and just recently installed in on one of my PCs, also wihtout issue. Just like anything else (with the exception of Scottish Eggs) too much of a good thing is no good. If you flood your screen with widgets that are actively updating, of course your performance will take a hit. Select your widgets carefully and just keep the ones that you really need open.

    Anywho, love your blog.

    Cheers,
    Ed T.

  16. Thanks Ed.

    At the end I was down to just one widget (a weather feed), and it was slowing down start-up to an absolute crawl. I tried re-installling with this single widget, but still no luck.

    And so I gave up.

  17. Please aend me cat pictures anytime… I love them Thanks Donna

  18. Delete this spam!

  19. Nice..nice post.

  20. hehe…kitten war. So cute I think I could puke. I am going to mention it on my website!