brunnhilde's slimming program - waste water discharge pipe

Face it, Brunnhilde has gotten a bit porky since coming to USA. I am helping her on a slimming program to return to her natural self. Like Mr. Shaw's drama I would soon make a lady out of her when we are through.

new feature - email subscription

Nowadays there are so many ways you can be kept informed of a blog. I personally prefer email and I just added the ability for the readers to subscribe to my blog by email. It is very simple. All you have to do is enter your email address and click "Submit", then follow the instruction.

brunnhilde's cassette toilet - part 13

This should be the last post for the cassette toilet for Brunnhilde. If I were to be superstitious I would skip part 13 and call it part 14 instead.

brunnhilde's cassette toilet - part 12

It is in! After a lot of hard work and I has the shower pan and the toilet installed into the bathroom. I am very happy with the result. My goal for the conversion was to achieve a finish quality commensurate with that of Westfalia factory.

just a simple braised beef flank cut

For Western folks it may comes as a surprise what some Asians like the way the flank steak is cut and used. First in North America flank steak used to be regarded as undesirable (as early Chinese immigrants) and sold as sub par cuts.

Brunnhilde's cassette toilet - part 11

Continuing the "rough out" cutout that I did with the Fein Multimaster I try to find a way to finish the not-so-neat cuts of the opening. I tried the Multimaster's rasp, it's wood cutting saw, even a spoke shave and none works. I then decided to use the 4" angle grinder fitted with a 80 grid sanding disc. I knew I have to be very careful as it is very aggressive. I have the angle grinder a long time and over the years I've gotten very good at it. I was able to make a very even result as if it was milled with a router.

brunnhilde's cassette toilet - part 10

A not so small progress in the cassette toilet conversion project.

live scallop with long bean

This is just a variation of the live scallop with asparagus. I just use what I have. I love long beans for their chewiness. They belong to my group of vegetable with character.

tacos with belgian chocolate mole

Whenever I engage in a home project the meals usually have to take a back seat. The recent project is the cassette toilet conversion for Tatyana. I skipped the weekly grocery shopping trip and have been eating from the refrigerator and the freezer. I did make a quick stop at Trader Joes running an erant and I picked up a few essentials including a pack of Belgian Chocolate which I want to make mole with.

live scallop with asparagus

I went grocery shopping at my Asian grocery sector today. It may be one of the longest period I have not shop for Asian Grocery in recent years. The reason is my venture out of my culinary comfort zones. Lately I have been cooking Western food more and most recently Mexican. What I miss most are the Asian vegetables. They are cheap, versatile, and delicious. I also prefer the cuts of meat that you cannot find in the supermarkets, or even the old fashion butchers.

brunnhilde's cassette toilet - part 9

I wanted to explore all options of modifying the shower pan. A few days ago on my trip to Tap Plastic I drop by the largest plastic supplier which also in the area. I brought with me the two pieces of the shower pan to see if they can tell me what material it is (I tentatively identified it as ABS and then acrylic in previous posts), and if there is a method to create a strong glue joint equal or stronger than the material itself. Surprisingly the 4 staffs cannot positively say what it is. There are a number of different answers. They said it is not acrylic as acrylic does not melt as easily as I described to them. Polystyrene receives the most votes. One person initially said it look fiberglass but later polystyrene or styrene.