soy sauce, sweetbreads, noodles...

Have recently returned from two conferences, each at opposite extremes of the gastronomic experience:

The first was at the University of California at Davis. Davis is just down the road from Sacramento, famous for housing the Californian governor who is, of course, not Californian. The second was at the University of Lyon, which, unsurprisingly, is in Lyon (that’s France, just in case you needed a prompt). Culinary highlights included:

• Davis: beer, wine, margarita, martini, noodles. not unreasonable coffee.
• Lyon: beer, wine, steak, sweetbreads (thymus gland), kidneys, bone marrow, fish, duck, paté du fois gras, steak tartar (raw beef), rubbish coffee.

The soy sauce from the title of this entry accompanied a part of my journey on a train from Oxford back to York until I spilled it on my MacBook Air. I’m happy to say it licked up a treat. But seeing as I had only recently spilled my iPhone down a toilet, I’m worried that this is becoming a habit (the spilling, not the licking... the iPhone is definitely off-limits, now).

And finally, a confession to share: a friend recently complained that my emails were resembling this blog more and more. And yes, said friend had already heard about the food, the soy sauce, and the toilet before they just this moment graced this URL. So I admit it: Today’s entry has been recycled - my small but valiant attempt to make this a greener blog.