Martin and I have been working hard on the Just Kai website in recent weeks. We're wanting to break the 'Just Kai' work off from this personal blog now that people I don't know are showing such an interest in it. I had nearly 3000 views on the 2019 Easter egg post - but I'm not going to retain those people if they have to wade through heaps of random things about my personal life to get to the content they're after!
I will continue to link my big fish research articles here, but if you'd like to be alerted to smaller, more regular updates, subscribe to the Just Kai blog here. The latest post is my speech from the Fairfield Conference, which went online today :-)
My buying guides for fish, cocoa and sugar have also been collected there: from now on, those are the ones that will be updated, rather than the versions on this blog.
I've also set up a Facebook page for Just Kai. I'll mainly use that to promote the blog articles, although it may also get some unique content. If you want to like that, it's here.
Just Kai has also signed up to Twitter. As well as promoting blog posts there, I'll use it to re-tweet articles relating to modern slavery and child labour. I put one up today about modern slavery in the UK, featuring a number of people forced into very everyday jobs.
Exciting times!
Friday, 31 May 2019
Wednesday, 29 May 2019
More milestones :-)
No photos, but I'm quite excited by a few recent developments.
As of Tuesday of last week, I'm playing the violin again :-) I'd been doing physio exercises to strengthen my back so I'll be strong enough to play it, and I decided the time had come. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it went reasonably well. Since then I've done at least 10 minutes practise every weekday, working away at Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring. It's going well and I've ordered some more sheet music from the library to be going on with :-)
Also, on Friday and Sunday I rode my bike to places I needed to get to, as opposed to just riding it for exercise. On Friday I rode to the GP for a blood pressure check (it's been a bit high and they want to check it weekly for the next wee while to keep an eye on it) and on Sunday I rode to church. Both are about 1.5km from home (if that), so it wasn't a huge ride, but neat to be using a bike for transport again :-)
When I started seeing the physio earlier this year, he wanted to know what my goals were in seeing him. Eventually I came up with being able to:
As of Tuesday of last week, I'm playing the violin again :-) I'd been doing physio exercises to strengthen my back so I'll be strong enough to play it, and I decided the time had come. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it went reasonably well. Since then I've done at least 10 minutes practise every weekday, working away at Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring. It's going well and I've ordered some more sheet music from the library to be going on with :-)
Also, on Friday and Sunday I rode my bike to places I needed to get to, as opposed to just riding it for exercise. On Friday I rode to the GP for a blood pressure check (it's been a bit high and they want to check it weekly for the next wee while to keep an eye on it) and on Sunday I rode to church. Both are about 1.5km from home (if that), so it wasn't a huge ride, but neat to be using a bike for transport again :-)
When I started seeing the physio earlier this year, he wanted to know what my goals were in seeing him. Eventually I came up with being able to:
- go tramping;
- use my bike for transport;
- play the violin.
Saturday, 11 May 2019
Citrus leaves
I've recently learned something super-cool: all citrus leaves are edible!
I've long known that kaffir lime leaves are edible (and widely used in Thai cuisine), but I'd assumed there was something special about them. But no! The essential oils that are present in the zest of citrus fruit are also in the leaves, so grapefruit leaves taste like grapefruit, lemon leaves like lemon etc.
You don't generally eat them as such: you infuse the flavour then discard the leaf, just like with bay leaves. So you can pour boiling water over the leaves and drink them as tea; simmer in stews, curries or milky puddings; wrap meat in them before baking (apparently salmon wrapped in lemon leaves is super-yum) or even put a layer of leaves in the bottom of the pan when you're baking a cake and let the flavour infuse up through the batter.
I've long known that kaffir lime leaves are edible (and widely used in Thai cuisine), but I'd assumed there was something special about them. But no! The essential oils that are present in the zest of citrus fruit are also in the leaves, so grapefruit leaves taste like grapefruit, lemon leaves like lemon etc.
You don't generally eat them as such: you infuse the flavour then discard the leaf, just like with bay leaves. So you can pour boiling water over the leaves and drink them as tea; simmer in stews, curries or milky puddings; wrap meat in them before baking (apparently salmon wrapped in lemon leaves is super-yum) or even put a layer of leaves in the bottom of the pan when you're baking a cake and let the flavour infuse up through the batter.
Friday, 10 May 2019
I'm sick
I've got some kind of cold/flu thing and have mostly been in bed since Friday last week (that's 8 days now). I keep on thinking I'm getting better (and yesterday even walked a circuit of our street with Martin) but then I don't. I have a yucky, gunky cough and runny nose, my head is fuzzy and I just want to sleep.
Martin probably caught the same thing, but he only had one and a half days off work earlier this week.
Maybe periods of illness like this will also be part of my new normal? I can think of a number of occasions in the distant pre-CFS past where I had 1-2 weeks in bed with a virus or tummy bug. Now that I'm out in public more again (and now that my immune system is no longer in the hyperactive state CFS likely put it in) maybe that will be how it is again.
Martin probably caught the same thing, but he only had one and a half days off work earlier this week.
Maybe periods of illness like this will also be part of my new normal? I can think of a number of occasions in the distant pre-CFS past where I had 1-2 weeks in bed with a virus or tummy bug. Now that I'm out in public more again (and now that my immune system is no longer in the hyperactive state CFS likely put it in) maybe that will be how it is again.
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I've recently learned something super-cool: all citrus leaves are edible! I've long known that kaffir lime leaves are edible (and ...