I was just having supper (main course as above) with my son, and the salad today was asparagus. This bunch of asparagus was on promotion today at the supermarket I went this morning. I bought loads of stuff on promotion :) and this asparagus was one of them - 'half price'. It's still too early for English asparagus, and I had a look at the tag on the bunch just out of curiosity. The label said this bunch is from Mexico.
I would have thought that Mexico City is one of the most polluted cities in the world (I might be wrong), although this particular bunch might have come from the area of cleaner air in Mexico. I mentioned this as we were eating this asparagus salad, and my son (an A Level student) said, "The carbon dioxide is good for plants. They grow faster."
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Call me ignorant, but is this why there are lots of vegetable fields alongside motorways? Maybe they make vegetable fields where there's lots of carbon dioxide because it's more productive. I'd never thought about this...
I try and get organic things from animal source, but I'm not too fussed about fruits and vegetables and it really doesn't matter to me where in the world fruit and veg come from. I just thought that this was an interesting idea to talk about.
Now, carbonara. The easiest and one of the tastiest supper for us. Mine is a bit lighter version than original Italian recipe. It's not much of a recipe, though. For one person, fry about 50g of chopped smoked bacon or pancetta. While the pasta is cooking, mix one egg yolk, tablespoonful of crème fraîche, a handful of grated Parmesan cheese. Just mix this with cooked pasta, salt and pepper them to your taste, sprinkle more Parmesan cheese and crispy bacon bits, and eat!