Lamb on Fire

 
A friend sent a whole leg of lamb from Taipei. The actual lamb - with all four legs - originated in Australia. This put me in a spot. The in-laws have a oven that shouldn't even qualify for the word. It's about large enough to roast an anorexic hedgehog. Not much good for anything else.

So I employed the braai ... again.

(This photo after 3 hours)









Filled with slight trepidation, I inserted small bits of bacon and garlic at several strategic locations in the leg. Salt, pepper, a bit of olive oil. Then wrapped it in some foil. It was on the fire - not over the coals - for close to five hours.

And it was beautiful. People came down from the hills to try some as word spread. On the table there were also lots of clams fried with ginger, garlic and chilli, sashimi with wasabi, oysters in a black bean sauce, some red wine and - of course - plenty of ice-cold beer.

Jack Daniel's Old No.7

 
Today, I would like to address one of the great questions of our time.

Why Old No.7?

Here's the great man himself.

It seems Mr.Jasper Newton "Jack" Daniel  had a fine temper - probably why nobody was brave enough to ask him the origin of the name of his most famous creation. From Wikipedia.

Daniel died from blood poisoning at Lynchburg in 1911. The infection allegedly set up originally in a toe, which Daniel injured in kicking his safe in anger when he could not get it open early one morning at work — he had always had trouble remembering the combination and his last words were "One last drink, please". This incident was the subject of a marketing poster used on the London Underground in January 2006, with the line "Moral: Never go to work early." A common joke that is told during the tour of the distillery is that all Jack had to do to cure his infection was to dip his toe in a glass of his own whiskey to clean it.

 A quick internet search produces these possible explanations for the name Old No.7.

"While a college student in Tennessee, not far from the Jack Daniels distillery, the story I heard was that in Mr. Daniels' first distiller's competition he was assigned number 7 as an entrant. May or may not be true, but the locals all believed it."

"A shipment marked No. 7 was lost. The first part of it sold so quickly that the sellers requested more of the No. 7. When JD found the lost portion of the shipment, they stamped it Old No. 7 to make sure the customers knew it was a part of the original number 7 shipment and not a new brew."

"They quote the legend claiming that Jack Daniels and his six friends invented the No7 whiskey; therefore, No. 7 stands as a tribute to his friends."

"Some say that Jack Daniel had 7 girlfriends, or that the way he wrote his “J” looked like a 7. Some say he chose the number 7 simply because it’s lucky.
One story goes that the recipe for Jack Daniel’s was Mr. Jack’s 7th recipe or 7th trial batch.
Another story says that it was the railroad shipping number on a barrel. We’ll never know for sure – Mr. Jack took that secret to the grave."

It's all put together very nicely in this commercial. Click here.

Well, I suppose there are greater mysteries to be pondered ....

Slow Afternoon

 
Made a fire yesterday. By putting the meat on in batches I skillfully managed to stretch the braai out all afternoon.

It was very hot and the ice cold Carlsberg beer complemented the sun just perfectly.

Carlsberg Beer (also called Carlsberg Lager and Carlsberg Pilsner) is the beer most people expect when ordering a Carlsberg. Carlsberg Special Brew is a very strong lager (sometimes known as premium lager) brewed in Denmark and the United Kingdom. It comes in a can with a distinctive gold and red colour.Special Brew was first brewed by master brewer, Thomas Marfleet, and was brewed by Carlsberg to commemorate a visit to Denmark of Winston Churchill in 1950. In May 1951 two crates were delivered to Churchill's London home. In a thank you letter Churchill called the drink "Commemoration Lager".

The Carlsberg's tagline "Probably the best beer in the world" was created in 1973 for the UK market. It began to appear in company corporate ads around the world from the 1980s onwards. The voice over for the original advertisement in 1975 was voiced by actor Orson Welles. More here.

Rice Paddy

 
Yesterday I was mainly here - helping on the farm. It looks a little like a scene from Platoon -  Is that Charlie moving in the treeline ... ?














Platoon was filmed in the Philippines. (Hey, Tears of the Sun, the SEAL movie set in Nigeria was filmed in Hawaii.)

This is interesting. Below, the iconic picture of Sgt Elias Grodin (Platoon) dying as the US helicopters depart the LZ.

And this is the photo it was based on.

As fellow troopers aid wounded buddies, a paratrooper of A Company, 101st Airborne, guides a medical evacuation helicopter through the jungle foliage to pick up casualties during a five-day patrol of Hue, South Vietnam, in April, 1968. (AP Photo/Art Greenspoon)

Taitung, Taiwan

I find myself back in Taitung - on the East coast of Taiwan - for the first time since August, 2009.

It's winter here, of course. But that means it's only marginally cooler than Cape Town in the summer. The locals think it's cold, though. Ergo, beach to ourselves. What's really astounding is the amount of driftwood - perhaps, the term doesn't quite cover it - still on the beach after Typhoon Morakot. And huge amounts have already been removed.

And this is the infamous hotel/timeshare facility that was apparently constructed illegally on a public beach. (In addition, the beach was closed to local residents.) After much protesting construction was halted and now here it stands...

How did this construction get this far? Some kind of skulduggery, methinks. Somebody better do something about it soon, too. Right now it's only good for filming low budget supernatural thrillers or Urban COIN training.