lava tea and cooking oil

[asakiyume]

I have two new food treasures: One, from mnfaure (thank you my dear!), is Thé des songes, tea of dreams, which is fragrant and ethereal like dreams, but the look of it--black, with bursts of red and gold--is like the surface of a lava lake, so I think of it as lava tea.



And the other, red as blood, red as hot lava, is this bottle of palm oil!



And with this bottle of palm oil, I'm going to make *even more* of Flo Madubike's recipes. I'm going to start with this one, for fried beans.

Comments

[gwynnega]

That tea looks almost too beautiful to brew!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It does, doesn't it? But I love tasting things, and so I did brew some, and it's lovely ♥

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

Yummy!

Have you tried the tea yet? I'm curious as to the flavor.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I have! It's very floral, with a hint of almost strawberry in it--which makes sense, as it has, in addition to blossoms, bits of dried fruit in it. Mmmmmm. Very god.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

"Very god," eh? :P

I like that typo (divine slip) because when picking out the tea for you, I thought of the visions the Lady of the Lake sent Kaya. :D

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha **perfect**

And did you notice in the conversation with khiemtran, the character for crow (at least, in Japan it's used for crow) is the first character used to write out "Oolong Tea,' which is the base tea for the Tea of Dreams!

[sovay]

Thé des songes, tea of dreams, which is fragrant and ethereal like dreams, but the look of it--black, with bursts of red and gold--is like the surface of a lava lake, so I think of it as lava tea.

Poem, or story, please.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, yes--a poem maybe.

[sovay]

Mmmm, yes--a poem maybe.

Prrrt.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I wish I could try the tea. It looks like something a dragon would drink.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It's base is oolong!! WHICH IS WRITTEN WITH THE CHARACTER FOR DRAGON.



(that second character is dragon)

how did you know you are a genius.

(And how about you tour this neck of the woods for Stranger? Then I will treat you to some, for sure)

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Wow! I must be psychic.

I would love to tour your place for Stranger. We'll see.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Ouf, and now the copyeditor in me is noticing that I typed "it's" instead of "its"

aaaaaaahhhhh.

Oh well. Put It down to excitement over dragon-lava tea.

And yay! Odyssey Book Store! Great indie bookstore, always doing author talks etc.

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

I may be being amnesiac. Have you made acarajes?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I have indeed!! I find it very therapeutic rubbing the beans together to get their skins off.

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

Now that I have never ever heard before. :D I do love acarjes, though. Enough to rub off the skins.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oooh, magical foods!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Indeed indeed!

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I think I have had tea like that. The kind I had contained yerba matte and rooibos, which seems a little... odd, but it was pretty and chocolatey (or chickory-y).

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That sounds very nice! I like straight tea flavors, all sorts, but I do like these ones that have other flavors as well, it turns out, and I love the look with the petals and peels and things. ann_leckie's Propriety tea was so pretty, with cornflower blossoms in it.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Tea of dreams! What a lovely name for a tea.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Seems like one might need to drink it sailing on one of the lunar seas (or actually, lakes: there's a Lake of Dreams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maria_on_the_Moon)).

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

All the craters on the moon have the most poetic names. Lake of Nectar, Lake of Tranquility...

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I'd need to be well aware of the source of a palm oil before I'd buy it. I avoid any processed food which lists it as an ingredient.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That's true, palm plantations are responsible for huge environmental devastation and displacement of indigenous populations.

This bottle of palm oil isn't guaranteed sustainable or anything else, but it's from Ghana, which at least means it's not from Indonesia, which is where I've heard of the worst abuses.

In this case, I feel the benefit from being able to share food with people far away outweighs the possible harm caused by my purchase of one bottle of palm oil.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

That tea does look enticing... And I love the way the characters for "Oolong" can be read as "black dragon". I'd never actually noticed that before.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

烏can be read as "black"? I only know it as "crow"--which makes it even better, for my purposes!

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Ah, the things we learn while reading one of your threads. :D

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Heee, and you posted this as I was writing to point you to this!

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

According to my dictionary anyway. I'm guessing "black" comes from "crow", just as we might say "raven hair" in English. But, you're right, crows and lava are probably even more appropriate...

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

Sounds divine. They both do actually.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The tea certainly is! And I'm testing out the palm oil tonight.