CUISINE: Gourmet and Simple

From Worldometer,  COVID-19 new deaths:

           DAY USA   WORLD   Brazil   India   South Africa

May     27    1535     5283         1148     190         28

            28    1223     4612         1067     177         25
            29    1212     4873         1180     269         34
            30    1015     4084           890     205         32
June      1      638     3189          480      223         40
              2      730     3053          732      200         22
              3    1134    4669         1232      221         50
             4     1083    4928         1269      259         37
             5     1031    5511         1492      275         56
             6       975    4906         1008      286         60
             7       706    4253           910      297         44
             8       586    3157           813      266         82
             9     1093    4732         1185      246         82
           10       982    5163         1300      388         48
           11       904    4951         1261      394         74
           12       791    4603           843      389         70
           13       702    4229           890      309         69
           14       331    3263           598      321         57
           15       425    3415           729      395         88
           16       849    6592         1338    2006?       57
           17       809    5264         1209      341         49
           18       747    5123         1204      342         63
           19       719    5066         1221      366         94

Summary:

• Brazil had 55,209 new cases, compared to #2, the USA, with 33,539.
• Exactly a week ago my posting was entitled:  Trump's Death Wish Crusade.  His:
• rally today will be in Oklahoma, a state with a 171% rise in new daily cases from  two weeks ago
• already, 6 Trump staffers helping set up the rally have tested positive for COVID-19
• they will check temperatures (which are almost useless)
• face masks will be provided, but need not be worn
• to be the largest indoor gathering in the world during this pandemic
• is this dumb, or what????
• next stop will be Arizona, with a 143% increase
• choice for the Republican National Convention is Florida, at 144%
• could have done worse
• South Carolina  213%
• Oregon              193%

My past two dinners have featured rather gourmet highlights.  First a giant artichoke:

This was the largest artichoke I've ever eaten.  This time I cut off the stem and boiled it with bottom side down.  The timing was perfect, as the final product was a tad crunchy, and the needles easily were removed.  Note the Bugles and Castello Blue Cheese.  I had cones of cheese and avocado.  The wine was a Stanford 2015 Fallbrook Cabernet Sauvignon.

Then last night I pulled out a frozen Costco Blue Plate New York Steak and enjoyed it with a piece of foie gras, ikura (salmon eggs) and ahi (yellow-fin tuna) sashimi:

Same Fallbrook cab, hot sake, Kirin beer and green tea.  Well fortified, I next went to Netflix and stumbled across a gem of a series, Midnight Diner, a Japanese heartwarming romantic comedy now in Season 5.  There have also been two films, Midnight Diner (2014) and Midnight Diner 2 (2016).  Rotten Tomatoes reviewers gave it a 100% rating, while audiences bestowed 94%.

The restaurant is a 12-seat Izakaya, which opens at midnight, and serves until 7 AM.  Located in a side street of Shinjuku, the chef is called "The Master," and the attractions are the food he serves and foibles of his customers.

He features only miso soup, plus an assortment of the simplest dishes, like ochazuke, ramen, curry rice, rolled omelet, musubi and hot dog.  However, a customer can suggest anything, and if he can, he provides.  Sometimes they bring their own exotic ingredient.  He has a rule of no more than three drinks, usually beer, sake and sochu.

Kaoru Kobayashi, a winner of many acting awards, is the chef.  He is mysterious, with an obvious facial scar, clearly from a sword cut, like samurai Tange Sazen.  His name is never given.  He is a sympathetic character, serves as a bartender/psychiatrist who you can talk to, and becomes a catalyst in the life of his customers.

The big negative is that he smokes while cooking.  I've noticed that many of these small Japanese diners, especially sushi bars, have smoking chefs.  I hate it, but the Japanese don't seem to mind.

Here is a list that showed up in my e-mail, so I did some research:

HAWAII............people in Hawaii live, on average, five years longer than Residents of any other state.  (nothing to do with food, but something new to me--so I checked and this is a slight exaggeration--we do have the highest life expectancy in the USA)

MISSOURI............Is the birthplace of the ice cream cone.  (Said to have become popular at the St. Louis World's Fair, 1904, but certainly wasn't invented there).

NORTH CAROLINA........Home of the first Krispy Kreme doughnut. (Yup.)

OHIO............The hot dog was invented here in 1900.  (Came from Germany, and first hot dog stand was on Coney Island around 1870.  Ohio is not close to being in the running.)

TEXAS..... The hamburger was invented in Arlington in 1906.  (Not Arlington, but maybe Texas might be the site.  More evidence shows that the hamburger came from Hamburg, Germany and served in Boston as early as 1884.  Chicago had a hamburger sandwich in 1896.  Louis' Lunch in New Haven, Connecticutt served it in 1900 and that same 1904 St. Louis World's Fair made it popular.  A case has nevertheless been made that Uncle Fletcher Davis in the late 1880's sold a hamburger, but in Athens, Texas.  The two cities, Arlington and Athens, are 92.5 miles apart.  Further, this article said that the New Haven hamburger was a steak sandwich.  So this remains reasonably controversial.)

UTAH...........The first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant opened here in 1952. (Colonel Sanders initially sold his chicken in Corbin, Kentucky, but the original KFC franchise was, indeed, in Salt Lake City.  Sanders was an honorary Kentucky Colonel, nothing to do with the military.)

Wow, I'm into 2019:

• Trump clone, Jair Bolsonaro began his term as President of Brazil.
• Qatar withdraws from OPEC.
• Chinese probe Chang'e 4 lands on the far side of the Moon.

• Second U.S.-North Korea summit with Trump and Kim Jong Un is held in Hanoi.
• Event Horizon Telescope succeeds in the first image of a black hole.

• U.S. women win FIFA Women's World Cup (soccer)
• Continued Hong Kong protests.
• Trump meets Kim Jong-un at DMZ.
• Japan resumes commercial whaling after a 30-year moratorium.

• Last Volkswagen Beetle.
• Greta Thunberg leads climate change protest.
• 11,000 scientists from around the world publish a study in BioScience warning of climate emergency.

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is indicted for bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
• President Donald Trump impeached by the House of Representatives.
• COVID-19 pandemic begins in Wuhan, China.

#1 hits of 2019 in under 4 minutes.  Lil Nas X's Old Town Road featuring Billy Ray Cyrus stayed at the top on Billboard for 19 straight weeks.

As this has become a food posting, here are some foodstuffs you can buy in China.  You need to read Chinese to learn what the largest photo offers.

-