How to trap fruit flies

Fruit flies have an incredible sense of smell.  It takes about two seconds (if not one) for them to zoom over to the source of something like a fruity smell -- as I've discovered from experience, as soon as I start to peel an orange or open a bottle of wine.

    For trapping them, I have used plastic bottles with a wide mouth, filling the bottles with some bait like fruit peel or fruit-infused liquid.

    I also add things like stones of fruit to shake around to kill them once they get in.

    The latest is wine.  It sounds like an expensive way to go about catching fruit flies, but one doesn't completely get rid of the contents of a wine bottle, even after tipping the bottle over to let it drip out as much of the liquid as possible, so that can be your bait.  Add a bit of water to give the fruit flies a pool of water to fall into.  Even very diluted wine, and sitting at the bottom of a 75cl bottle, will have a strong enough smell to attract them.

    Leaving a wine bottle sitting around after pouring out the contents for yourself works well because the fruit flies will home in on the bottle and travel down to the bottom.  For some reason, they don't seem to be able to find their way up and out of the 75cl bottle.  Maybe it's too far up for them to fly, and the mouth is also too small for them to find the exit?

    No work needed at all after this -- except to drink the wine...  (For non-wine drinkers, maybe use fruit juice or vinegar.  Again, only a small amount will be enough, even diluted.)

The nature vs nurture of food: 07 (Habits from upbringing)

 

The Chinese generally use soya sauce in the cooking process, or as a dip, but not for adding on to a dish once it’s served up.  Not even by an individual for his/her own portion  — it doesn’t work, anyway, as the helpings come by the chopstickful, so it’ll be too fiddly adding a drop of soya sauce to each chopstick helping of food.

    I grew up being taught never to ask for soya sauce as a dinner guest, even if I found the food bland for my taste, because it implies that the cook had not got it just right in the kitchen.  Adding soya sauce to one’s food at the dinner table could, therefore, be insulting to the cook.  

    I apply the same principle when eating out in a restaurant.

 

    Even eating fish and chips, which I love, I instinctively hardly ever add salt or vinegar or ketchup, the most common condiments for it.  I eat it plain, as it is.

    That’s the nurture bit, from how I was taught as a child, and it has stuck right through my life.

    If I’m given a salad without the dressing, I’ll eat it plain (although I enjoy salad dressings).  

    Again, the nurture element:  I don’t add extra to the dish at the table.

    That’s how deep conditioning goes.  In me, anyway.

Getting computer screens cleaned for free

Same as for cleaning mirrors (https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2023/05/cleaning-mirrors.html), part of which I reproduce below for ease of reference:

    For cleaning mirrors, a lot of tips out there say water + vinegar, and maybe washing-up liquid plus other things that you have to pay for (soap, rubbing alcohol*). Not to mention the microfibre cloth for wiping the surface.  

If you live in an area where you get free newspaper, use it to clean mirrors.  

    Just wet it, and wipe the mirror with it.  All blotches will be lifted, even stubborn stains.  (The news ink soaks up all the grease.)  No streaks.

 

*google says: isopropyl alcohol or an ethanol-based liquid, with isopropyl alcohol products being the most widely available.

Cleaning mirrors

Someone I met on a course two weekends ago said she and her husband are planning to move out of London at some stage to Wales, to grow things and be self sufficient.  So, I’ve started compiling a list of eco(-logical/-conomical) tips for her.

For cleaning mirrors, a lot of tips out there say water + vinegar, and maybe washing-up liquid plus other things that you have to pay for (soap, rubbing alcohol*). Not to mention the microfibre cloth for wiping the surface.  

If you live in an area where you get free newspaper, use it to clean mirrors.  

Just wet it, and wipe the mirror with it.  All blotches will be lifted, even stubborn stains.  (The news ink soaks up all the grease.). No streaks.

*google says: isopropyl alcohol or an ethanol-based liquid, with isopropyl alcohol products being the most widely available.

The hidden message in Chinese food 06: consuming vinegar (Taiwan)

Another Conoco Taiwan local staff lunch outing was to a dumpling restaurant.  I was absolutely amazed at how many dumplings my colleagues could each eat.  Even the women could eat something like 25 of them at one sitting.

The simplest dip for dumplings is soya sauce and vinegar (醋 cù).  One can also add one or all of the following: chilli oil, sesame oil, garlic paste, ginger, chopped spring onion, coriander.  Anything that one fancies really, I guess.

My youngest colleague, Mary Fu 傅曼麗, then only 21 (three weeks younger than I), had her saucer filled with something like one part soya sauce and four parts vinegar.  

Accountant Cray Chang 張城隆, as usual, immediately remarked, “哇，你很会吃醋！wa, nǐ hěn huì chī cù / Wow, you very much know how to eat vinegar.”  

This was an obvious pun, because 吃醋 chī cù / “eat vinegar” in Chinese means “to get jealous”, so Cray was saying to Mary, “You get jealous easily (You’re very good at eating vinegar).”

Mary’s instant response was, 我只会吃湿醋，不会吃干醋 / wǒ zhǐ huì chī shī cù, bù huì chī gān cù / “I only know how to eat wet vinegar, not dry vinegar”.

(Taiwan, 1975)