On food cooked and eaten in the past couple of days.

Made clam chowder yesterday in the 5-quart pot. I put scallops, clams and crab meat in it, along with leek, mushroom and potato. The scallops were fab. Next time I'll get whole clams instead of chopped clams, and maybe it'll turn out even better.

Today I was thinking of doing chicken. I saw someone on television making a sort of roast chicken breast, but in a pan. I'm not confident I can do that without burning the chicken on the one hand, and without drying the meat on the other. The flame would have to be just right, the pan would have to conduct heat the right way, the fat content of the chicken would have to be just right, et cetera. Fears notwithstanding, I'm probably going to end up making chicken today, given that I'm a bit short on ideas.

I'm still not over the awesome squid ink tagliolini that I had in Dubai, of all places. It was right out of the Inspector Montalbano series. It was served in a squid sauce. So good! And for a starter, I had a nice small portion of mushroom risotto, served in a martini glass-like thing, which was delicious. I had to pass on dessert because I was so full.

I would love to read the history of Malay-style dining, which is so different from the European style three-course meal. We eat little bits of everything, all in one sitting.

I would do the research myself, if someone would give me a grant for it (and more importantly, give me ample time to finish the manuscript). What did we eat before the Dutch started the rijsttafel? Was our diet more vegetarian - filled with ulam and such - and if so, how was it served? What did we eat before the British invented curry and the Indian immigrants brought it over? In the Nusantara, we've eaten rice from as early as the eighth century, but what style did we cook it in? (The Persians have all sorts of different ways to cook rice.) And what did we eat our rice with?

How old is the recipe for our flavourings, like belacan? (The Romans had something similar - garum.)