PicoBlog

The raw seafood used in foods such as sushi and sashimi may contain parasitic worms that can cause relatively mild to severe infections in humans. Anisakis simplex is the most likely offender when it comes to parasitic infections from these now common foods. Anisakis is a marine roundworm that can be found in over 200 species of fish, eel and octopus. When you eat raw seafood contaminated with this roundworm, you are ingesting live larval forms of the parasite.

In last week’s newsletter, we took a basic gin sour and added a few dashes of Angostura Aromatic bitters. Doing so instantly creates a new and entirely different drink, which the creator, Dale DeGroff, dubbed the Fitzgerald. It’s a simple modification that takes a three-ingredient standard and gives it just a little bit more complexity.  The Fitzgerald relies on dasher-bottle bitters, the kind you typically pour in drops or dashes rather than ounces, and which typically aren’t meant to be consumed on their own.

With three trilogies, a duology, and several other books and stories featuring the legendary Chiss character, there are always questions about how to read Thrawn books — where to start, in what order, etc. The good thing is that there is no definitive reading order for Thrawn. Depending on how you were introduced to the character or what part of the Star Wars timeline you want to start in, you can start with almost any of the Timothy Zahn-penned Thrawn books.

Hello! I want you to know that I had never in my LIFE cooked chicken before I attempted this recipe last night because I wanted to make something tasty for my carnivorous boyfriend. It was hands down the most delicious thing he'd eaten in a very long time (his words not mine) and I was super proud of myself but also so impressed with the recipe! There were a lot of ingredients but it was so straightforward to follow.

Welcome back to Baseball Week, where I’m spending the week writing about baseball movies, and thank you for the positive response to all of the posts so far.  Sweet Dreams is not, in fact, a baseball movie. It’s a softball movie. But beyond that, it’s an addiction movie. One featuring an intense, primarily successful dramatic turn from a man whom I’ve seen, over the years, get punched, tased,  electrocuted, and hit with all sorts of objects.

I love cornbread and I love sweet potato, so why not combine the two. While this isn’t a new invention, the combination of sweet potato to a classic cornbread recipe creates a tender bite that is rich in flavor and not too dry. The addition of jalapeno and cheese takes this over the top. All you need to do is finish it with a touch of honey, butter and sea salt and you will find your new addiction.

One sunny April afternoon, I found myself strolling around the Wenshu Buddhist Temple in Chengdu. This now well-visited tourist spot is surrounded by popular street food, including a time-honored noodle eatery offering petite, snack-sized noodle bowls. It wasn't a tough choice to make, so I ordered two classics: liang fen (recipe here) and tian shui mian (甜水面), the latter translates as sweet-water noodles. It has been years since I last had it.

A lot of trends come and go in Paris. Some, like Stan Smith sneakers* and not-especially-good mojitos at cafés, have come and (thankfully) gone. The former made me feel like a bunch of hipsters had appropriated my New England adolescence, which was spent in Stan Smith sneakers. The latter, les Mojitos, were eventually replaced by Aperol Spritzes, which I don’t mind but am ready to see some of the wonderful French apéritifs (such as Cap Corse and vermouth blanc) get more attention by the locals.

This is the 11th and second to last episode of Season One: I’m (not?) The Best, a multi-month deep dive into the ideas of competition, comparison, testing and achievement. How heavy do you think an iPhone 12 Pro is? I’d say it's like 1.5 pounds? A pound? It’s heavy. Ok I looked it up and it’s actually 6.66oz, the devil’s weight and also like 0.4 pounds. But it feels heavier, which makes sense cuz inside of it lives a cosmic shitstorm of useless baggage in the form of apps, reminders, and ‘games.