Oct. 2nd, 2010 08:29

drinks

cos: (Default)
The English drink tea.

One of my cousins, with Majorca's standard ice tea

The French drink wine.
The Finns drink vodka. (Oh yeah, so do the Russians, though not as much :)

Sure, they drink other things, but some places have their endemic drink of choice. In Italy, it's espresso everywhere. When I ordered tea at some restaurants, they gave me strange looks. In Kenya, passion fruit juice is their parallel to our orange juice - the standard juice you can assume will be available.

I'm not sure what Spain's drink is, but on Majorca at least, the ice tea niche is rather odd: Wherever I ordered ice tea, it was always the same. At a fancy hotel's restaurant, or an even fancier one, at a sidewalk cafe or a streetside bar, an expensive restaurant, anywhere - they always gave me a glass bottle of Nestea, and a glass with ice. Always the same Nestea logo, and exactly the same tea. Well, except for one place: they gave me a can of Nestea (same logo, same stuff) and a glass with ice. Apparently, there is no other ice tea on that island.

I'd always associated Germany with beer. But now that I've been to Germany, or at least one part of it, I think it's actually sparkling water. At restaurants and at people's homes, sparkling water is what they pour by default. If you want just water, you have to ask for "still water". Beer is something they might offer, or ask if you want, but plain sparkling water is what they assume you want without asking.

Got any others to add to the list?
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cos: (Default)
    1/2 bowl of spicy peanuts from the Green Street Grill1
    2/3lb ground beef
    3/4lb fresh snow peas
    a few mushrooms
    frozen edamame, frozen peas
    high heat stir fry oil or peanut oil
    toasted sesame oil
    soy sauce, lemon juice
    ... some spices ...

Clean and slice the mushrooms.
Wash the snow peas, and cut all the tips off.
Chop up the ground beef.

In a pan, mix stir fry oil (enough to cover the bottom generously) with garlic powder and onion power2, then heat and add mushrooms to saute. Stir quickly.

When mushrooms are all coated in garlicky peanut oil, add ground beef, stir to break up the pieces. Add spicy peanuts.

When beef is about 4 minutes from done, add the snow peas.

Stir in some soy sauce and toasted sesame oil. Keep frying over medium-high heat.

2 minutes before done, sprinkle in some frozen edamame and peas.

Turn off heat, stir in a bit of lemon juice3. Maybe about 2tsp?

1 - I bet this would work quite well with Trader Joe chili-lime cashews, which is what I'm going to try next, because I won't always have gone to the Green Street Grill recently and have leftover spicy peanuts :)

2 - I was unexpectedly out of fresh garlic, and cooking for someone who doesn't like onions, but I bet chopping up some actual garlic and onions to saute would work quite well! Speaking of which, she doesn't like tomatos either, or I probably would've added them somewhere later one.

3 - Lemon juice was a last minute thought, and I wish I'd thought of it earlier and bought a lime. Both test eaters agreed that adding bits of lime would be even better.
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