keen

I swear to not make a new dish at night again, not worth struggling with horrendous lighting. It makes me sad to present such a bad photo of such a yummy dish:

Squash pasta with braised greens + egg! 

The squash pasta is by no means an original recipe, but rather I came up with my version first and then found out that it's actually quite common. This time made with butter and leeks, which smells amazing while cooking. I regret all the previous times I've disregarded potato and leek soup now. Leeks are amazing. The greens recipe is via Bon Appetit, and made with literally something labeled greens at Sainsbury plus some beet stems that add nice color. I've also come to appreciate a softish boiled egg with a drop of soy sauce, actually liking it more than fried eggs right now but that's moreso because I've consistently overcooked my fried egg's yolk by basting it too long with hot oil :(
Together these three components makes such a comforting supper. Perfect pairing with heart-warming manga.

...

I've also been learning more about cheese now that I'm in this historically cheese producing region (cheddar). Before I go spoil myself with the genuine farmhouse cheddars, I'm liking the cheap supermarket stuff. Snack of the month goes to apple and cheddar slices:

...

Lastly, rare times when I'm drinking green tea, this is a mao feng:

Because tea from friends are always nice ^^

abbey

How rare it is for me to be in town during golden hour AND on a clear day:

I do wish that I lived closer to this part of town, but am thankful for the (significantly) cheaper rent at my residence. Plus all the walking, which really isn't all that much since Bath is tiny, is good for my health.

near

A couple days ago where Bath *finally* had good looking clouds during sunset. Once in a whole month!

EB

Daily views during lecture weeks:

‘cause nothing is real, only entertainers here

Listening to Epic High's new album, but I'll save those for another day as my music queue is long. Here's another great collaboration with Nell:

Fashion / aesthetics have changed a lot in 10 years haha.

season

I feel quite wise that I brought a good portion of my herbs and spices over. Alas I didn't bring enough and had to resort to buying more. It sounds like a complaint, but food shopping is my favourite kind of shopping hue hue. My latest haul is from Spice Mountain, but Penzey's remains my favourite since they come in glass jars instead of plastic.

Current state of my herbs and spices:

Aside from the inexcusable lack of sichuan peppers, this covers most dishes that I make, which currently consists mostly of soups and curries. I got an extra large bag of black pepper so I have no fear of running out. Tellicherry black pepper is also how I vet spice stores, although the local Toronto spice shop didn't specify which type they carried but those unnamed peppers turned out fine.

step

I was confused as to why this walk is called the Skyline walk until we got to here:

SHEEPS! COWS! Much excite.

boil

Last week's soup:

Moroccan lentil and veg stew

I foolishly chose to order spices from a vendor that's on vacation (I was informed before checkout), so out of my many, many soup recipes saved on instapaper, this was the only one I could make with the spices on hand. But now I'm fully stocked up and can work my way through these:

• Daal: not exactly soup but it functions the same. Lentils have crazy amounts of protein in them, no wonder almost every suggestion in /r/eatcheapandhealthy includes them. Option 1: spiced lentils, option 2: tarka dhal, option 3: dal nirvana, bonus dishroom style black lentils
• Zuppa Toscana
• The always reliable peanut stew 
• Sweet potato chowder
• Caldo Verde
• Braised coconut / spinach / chickpea
• Italian wedding soup

Human Scale

Hopefully Alphabet can shove some innovation into construction / urban planning *fingers crossed*

The most existing PDF I've read this year

...

This documentary explains the motivation for designing cities for the people:

threes

I was really hyped about the trice charcoal roasted dongding that I got from Floating Leaf, bringing it all the way to Bath with me...and that's where the problem occurs. Bath has very hard water, which also causes a tremendous amount of hair loss although I'm not complaining, but the point relevant to tea is that it makes tea taste different. I only brought two tea that I've regularly consumed in Canada, and have not liked how their taste changed with the water here. So currently I'm not liking the taste of the dongding that much (pretty standard, meh), but it's probably not the tea's fault.

The hard water also amplifies the tea stains "orz

I ought to head to my local tea shop and ask how they deal with this water, and maybe try some darjeeling (opps not suppose to be buying more tea).

wondering where you are

Good thing I have a nice backlog of music to post since lectures for the next course starts next week.


Looking forward to Noel Gallagher and Epik High's new albums also coming out next month / week.

apricot

I'm still lacking diligence to be a good landscape photographer...and lacking trust in the weather forecast. It went from overcast when I woke up to decent clouds when I was leaving back to overcast when I arrived at Alexandria Park. Oh wells, this is a different but nice mood and provides good motivation for me to return regularly (itching for a telephoto lens tho).

Wardrobe Inventory: uk edition

I think the lack of extreme cold or hot weather in the UK means this is as small as my wardrobe will ever be. The inventory currently stands at:

• Outerwear: 6
• Knitwear: 7
• Pants: 4
• Shirts and blouses: 9
• Tees: 3
• Dresses: 3
• Skirts: 4
• Scarves: 7
• Shoes: 3
• Boots: 3
• Bags: 3

which is 36 pieces of clothing and 16 pieces of accessories. Imagine someone else in my situation would have less outerwear and scarves haha. 

Filippa K

I've been pretty good at finding brands that I like on this side of the Atlantic. Today features Filippa K, which I vaguely remember reading about on /r/ffa. It's also a brand that values sustainability and transparency (seems hard to find a brand that doesn't say so), but this claim feels a lot more substantial with supplier info for every item, good start to a garment care guide, recycling and leasing initiatives and annual sustainability reports.

It is quite pricy so not sure if I'll actually buy these two shinies:

skirt / jumper

I also discovered John Smedley on ffa today and would theoretically like the brand if not for the way clothing is modelled (or lack of) on their website.

...

Trying to be good and write more of my report instead of pouring over this blog (tagline is: I save 50% of my income and buy $400 shoes). Already adopting her shopping practices.

goat

Food of last week:

 pasta e ceci via Smitten Kitchen

sweet potato and lentil curry via BBC

...

I walked to a new grocery store today and the walk is even more scenic. The walking path is mostly a footpath through a residential district, so its lined with shrubs with flowers and berries. The store is located uphill, so on top of being a good workout, I get to see a good panorama of Bath. Too bad the store itself is quite small so still have to go to Sainsbury.

beech

Bath in b/w, one new photo and a bunch of old ones from here:

fondness

Things I ate last week:

 the default miso soup

vegetable...crustless quiche? omelette? egg饼?

the default vegetable soup

...but this is the tastiest version of my vegetable soup so far. Good sweetness and texture. Cook the following in the listed order:

• 1 bay leaf / couple black peppercorn
• 3 thick slices of smoked back bacon, fat trimmed & rendered

• 1 trimmed leek
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 carrot

• 1 sweet potato
• 8oz (by volume) dried white beans, soaked overnight

• half a head of "greens" (no idea what kind of greens it is, reminds me of collard greens. a whole bunch is cheap at Sainsbury)

Separation

W.S. Merwin

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

Poetry is an item on the to-do list with indefinite deadlines.

...

kids.

change my mind

Soundtrack of the week while working on the LT assignment. So much project management lessons learned, what a catastrophe it was.

sunshine

Sore throat, ugh :(

cows

I'm being a good little student and started on the (available for free) optional readings for my first course: Building Design for Low Carbon. The book Sustainable Energy with the Hot Air starts off, as with most books and lectures on this topic, justifying the reality of climate change. As in the physical phenomenal is happening, that there are "factual assertions" that are true. I find it a little sad that this premise is still required. The book also takes extra care to separate the "factual assertions" from "ethical assertions" which deal with why/how/what actions we should take. I'm glad that I took ENV221 and 222 in forth year as these two courses give a solid foundation for the ethical (most useful reading imo) and political issues involved in taking action.

...

All the above text is really leading into the fact that I forgot to post a quotations from From Field to Fork: Food Ethics for Everyone:

People gain weight because they eat too many calories or are too inactive for the calories they eat. Genetics affects this balance, of course, because heredity predisposes some people to gain weight more easily than others, but genetic changes in a population occur too slowly to account for the sharp increase in weight gain over such a short time period.

My first thought after reading these lines is that it sounds so darn similar to evidence for asserting that anthropogenic climate change is real.

This book is also a good introduction to the subject of Food Ethics, and does a good job of explaining some basic ethics framework as well. Kevin and Eric's philosophy discussions make much more sense after reading the background chapters in this book.

...

Another book I've read this summer on the topic of food is Food Politics (I also follow the author's blog). This book is another good subject introduction to the numerous conflict of interests that exist in the food system.

...

Lastly, my personal reading goals for this year is to tackle most of Terry Pratchett's Discoworld series. Seems appropriate as I'm in the U.K. and I would like some fun reading to do before sleeping in hopes that I'll sleep better with some buffer between when I close my eyes and looking at a screen. I hope I'll enjoy his work as much as I've enjoyed Vonnegut's.