Tourists pose for a photograph on the famous pier of a South Korean Netflix series in the village of Iseltwald, in the Swiss Alps. PHOTO: AFP
ISELTWALD, SWITZERLAND (AFP) – “It’s a dream come true,” said Filipina tourist Isabel Palijon, staring in wonder at a wooden pier framed by the turquoise waters of a Swiss lake and the towering Alps behind.
And she is not alone. Ever since the hugely popular South Korean series Crash Landing on You aired a romantic scene shot on this very spot, the picturesque village of Iseltwald has been overrun by Asian tourists.
The Netflix hit tells the unlikely story of a South Korean billionaire heiress who accidentally paraglides into the peninsula’s demilitarised zone, crashing landing onto a chivalrous army officer serving North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Several flashbacks in the show take place in Switzerland, including a riveting romantic scene on Iseltwald’s wooden pier, where the male lead plays a beautiful piano melody that echoes across the water as the girl he will later fall in love with arrives by ferry from Interlaken.
“I wish someday someone would do that for me,” said Jiah Hni Gwee, a 35-year-old from Malaysia, looking longingly at the spot on the pier where the piano stood. “It would be amazing and romantic.”
She was among dozens of tourists milling around the lakeside on a sunny day last week, as a large steamboat bearing a giant Swiss flag pulled up to the nearby dock, teeming with visitors.
The breathtaking scenery and the romantic setting have made the pier a must-see for so-called CLOY fans who make it to Europe.
Tourists pose for a photograph on the famous pier of a South Korean Netflix series in the village of Iseltwald, in the Swiss Alps. PHOTO: AFP
Argentinian street artist Maximiliano Bagnasco takes a photo of a mural portraying Argentinian football superstar Lionel Messi, that he painted, in Tirana, Albania. PHOTO: AP
TIRANA, ALBANIA (AP) – One side of a dormitory for medical students in downtown Tirana, Albania, has been covered by a mural of Lionel Messi.
Argentine painter Maximiliano Bagnasco is taking part in the Tirana MuralFest 2023 and decided to go with the football great, his idol.
The 25×10-metre mural of a bearded and smiling Messi, wearing Argentina’s white-and-blue national team jersey with the number 10, will cover part of a building at a crossroad near the capital city’s main hospitals.
“It is a source of pride for me… that my work has become known for painting them, our idols,” the 41-year-old Bagnasco told The Associated Press.
Bagnasco has also painted a mural of Diego Maradona in Naples, as well as in Miami and other places. Maradona also won a World Cup with Argentina wearing the number 10 shirt.
Argentinian street artist Maximiliano Bagnasco takes a photo of a mural portraying Argentinian football superstar Lionel Messi, that he painted, in Tirana, Albania. PHOTO: AP
He then led Napoli to its first two Italian league titles in 1987 and 1990 before the team won a third this season.
Two days after Argentina won the World Cup in Qatar last year, Bagnasco painted a mural in Buenos Aires of Messi lifting the trophy.
“Messi is the best player in the world at the moment,” Bagnasco said of the player who has decided to move to Inter Miami in Major League Soccer (MLS). “Today the world is a fan of Argentina because of Messi.”
Helidon Haliti, a painter who is the main organiser of the MuralFest, said Bagnasco offered other works for the competition. When asked who his hero was, which was the main theme of the MuralFest 2023, he immediately responded “Messi”.
“That mural will mark a very interesting moment because he (Messi) was World Cup winner last year and this time he will make us a winner,” Haliti said. “I am sure of that.”
Tirana is the European City of Sports 2023 and has been holding and has planned many continental sporting activities.
Albanians have known Messi very well.
“Messi deserves it as a player and we, Albanians, too, to enjoy that world-class personality,” 61-year-old Arben Stafa said.
Members of the chamber vote to pass the revised Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, which reviews the detention and deportation rules of foreigners, during a plenary session of the House of Councillors at the Parliament building in Tokyo, Japan. PHOTO: AFP
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan enacted an immigration law yesterday allowing the government to deport failed asylum seekers, despite pushback from opposition parties and rights groups.
Until the revised legislation was passed, applicants could stay in Japan during the decision process, regardless of the number of attempts they made to secure refugee status.
Now they can be deported after three rejections.
The revised law will “protect those who must be protected while strictly dealing with people who have violated rules”, Justice Minister Ken Saito has said.
“There are many people who misuse the application system to avoid deportation,” even if they are not fleeing danger or persecution, according to Saito.
Last year, Japan accepted just 202 refugees out of some 12,500 applicants, and separately allowed 1,760 people to remain in the country due to “humanitarian considerations”. It has also accepted more than 2,400 evacuees from Ukraine under a different framework.
Members of the chamber vote to pass the revised Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, which reviews the detention and deportation rules of foreigners, during a plenary session of the House of Councillors at the Parliament building in Tokyo, Japan. PHOTO: AFP
Activists staged rallies against the revised law, but a protest from the opposition bloc in Parliament was voted down by the ruling coalition, which holds a commanding majority. A ruckus broke out in Parliament on Thursday when opposition lawmakers accosted the chairman of a committee discussing the bill, trying to block a vote on the changes.
“It is intolerable to deport people, even if they have criminal records, to countries that may violate their human rights” and where “their life and freedom would be in danger”, the Tokyo Bar Association said this week. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party said the revisions will bring better access to medical care and accommodation options for people whose asylum applications are pending. Japan’s immigration detention conditions have been under scrutiny since the 2021 death of a 33-year-old Sri Lankan woman Wishma Sandamali.
Sandamali was not an asylum seeker but had been held for overstaying her visa after seeking police protection, reportedly to escape an abusive relationship.
Her family are seeking compensation of more than USD1 million from the government over her death.
Sandamali reportedly complained repeatedly of stomach pain and other symptoms, and campaigners allege she received inadequate medical care. Controversy and political pressure over the incident led ruling lawmakers to drop a push to enact similar legal changes to immigration rules two years ago.
A lawyer for Sandamali’s family Shoichi Ibusuki, told AFP on Thursday that the revised bill was “equivalent to having a button to execute those who seek refuge by deporting them”.
“Japan’s refugee recognition system is not working,” he said, with officials turning down applications quickly, sometimes without face-to-face interviews.
Amnesty International also said in March that Japan should scrap the proposed revision to immigration laws, calling the country’s detention policies “harsh” and “repressive”.
French President Emmanuel Macron arrives to visit the victims of a knife attack at the University hospital in Grenoble, in the French Alps. PHOTOS: AFP
ANNECY, FRANCE (AFP) – President Emmanuel Macron yesterday visited the hospital where four preschoolchildren badly wounded in a knife attack by a Syrian refugee that shocked France, with two of the toddlers still in critical condition, and receiving treatment.
The children were stabbed in a playground in the southeastern Alpine town of Annecy, a normally idyllic lakeside spot popular with foreign and domestic visitors.
One of the victims was British and another from the Netherlands. Two adults, elderly men both in their 70s, were also wounded. The youngest child wounded was just 22 months old and the oldest 36 months.
While prosecutors insisted they did not see any terror motive in the attack, the rampage intensified tensions in France over immigration, with the far-right pointing to the origins of the refugee but the government urging unity.
Macron and his wife Brigitte arrived in the southeastern city of Grenoble where the children are being treated and also visited those who “contributed in helping and supporting them”, the presidency said.
French President Emmanuel Macron arrives to visit the victims of a knife attack at the University hospital in Grenoble, in the French Alps. PHOTOS: AFPPolice officers investigate at the scene after a knife attack in Annecy
“From what I understand, there are still two children considered to be in critical condition,” government spokesman Olivier Veran told Franceinfo radio, confirming that surgical operations had taken place
The attacker, dressed in black and carrying a blade around 10 centimetres long, could be heard shouting, according to a video taken by a bystander and seen by AFP.
“There’s no obvious terrorist motive,” local prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis told reporters.
She said an investigation for attempted murder had been opened and that the suspect, named as Abdalmasih H, was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
The man spent the night in detention and is to undergo a psychiatric examination.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said the suspect was “not known by any intelligence service” and did not have “any history of psychiatric problems”.
Recently divorced from a Swedish national and in his early 30s, the suspect had previously lived for 10 years in Sweden where he was granted refugee status in April, security sources and his ex-wife told AFP.
“He called me around four months ago,” his ex-wife said on condition of anonymity, saying he had left Sweden because he had been unable to get Swedish nationality.
The attacker’s mother, who has lived in the United States for 10 years, said she was “in a state of shock”.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told broadcaster TF1 “for reasons not well explained he had also sought asylum in Switzerland, Italy and France”.
It emerged that a late November application in France was rejected last Sunday as he already enjoyed refugee status in Sweden.
Darmanin described the turning down of that application and the stabbings as a “troubling coincidence”.
Witnesses described the assailant running around the park on the banks of Lake Annecy wearing a bandana and sunglasses, apparently attacking people at random.
BUDAPEST (AFP) – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban yesterday slammed as “unacceptable” a European Union (EU) agreement to revise the bloc’s rules on member states hosting asylum-seekers and migrants.
“Brussels is abusing its power. They want to relocate migrants to Hungary with force. This is unacceptable, they want to forcefully turn Hungary into a migrant country,” Orban wrote on Facebook.
The agreement reached by EU interior ministers in Luxembourg on Thursday revised the bloc’s rules on sharing the hosting of asylum-seekers and migrants more equitably.
The deal – which needed approval from a majority of countries representing at least 65 per cent of the bloc’s population – comes after years of wrangling over asylum policy.
The proposal introduced at the meeting on Thursday called for compulsory help between EU member countries, but with an option of doing that in one of two ways.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. PHOTO: AFP
The priority is for EU countries to share the hosting of asylum-seekers, taking in many that arrive in nations on the bloc’s outer rim, mainly Greece and Italy.
The agreement said nations that refuse would instead be required to pay a sum of EUR20,000 (USD21,000) per person into a fund managed by Brussels.
But Poland and Hungary voted against the proposals, while Bulgaria, Malta, Lithuania and Slovakia abstained.
The EU is “eliminating (member states’) say in who resides in their territories”, Hungary’s Deputy Interior Minister Bence Retvari told the Hungarian state news agency MTI yesterday.
Retvari said the new distribution mechanism would “basically allow illegal migrants or the human traffickers who brought them to Europe to decide themselves who will live in Europe”.
Some of the proposals had been distributed “minutes, at most half an hour” ahead of the votes on Thursday, said Retvari.
“Pro-migration governments” had “pressured” other member states to approve the proposals, he said.
THE WASHINGTON POST – Recently, a 32-year-old patient of mine told me he had driven to work and fallen asleep behind the wheel at a red light. To his chagrin, he was pulled over by an officer who arrested him on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. He wasn’t.
It turns out he was driving under the powerful influence of chronic sleep deprivation, which he thought he could keep at bay with ever-increasing amounts of caffeine.
Feeling overwhelmed by the gruelling pace of his graduate studies and teaching responsibilities, he decided to shave an hour or two off his sleep schedule and rely on coffee to turbocharge himself in the morning.
The strategy worked well at first and he felt energised and alert. He was highly productive and focussed for several months before he noticed that his coffee consumption began creeping up from one to nearly six cups per day to stay alert on just five hours of sleep each night – two hours short of his regular total.
HOW CAFFEINE FOOLS YOUR BODY
An eight-ounce cup of coffee provides about 100 milligrammes (mg) of caffeine. Between 400 and 500mg of caffeine per day is generally considered safe.
Caffeine toxicity, like seizures or an arrhythmia, is common with consumption of 1200mg or more per day.
My patient was unaware that his caffeine-induced sense of alertness was illusory. His brain was deeply and chronically deprived of sleep, and it was fooled only temporarily by his hefty caffeine use. The fact is that no known drug, including caffeine, can effectively reverse sleep deprivation.
The reason has to do, in part, with the circadian rhythm of a chemical called adenosine that plays a major role in the regulation of sleep.
When you awake from a restful night of sleep, the adenosine level in your brain is at its nadir. Throughout the day, it steadily rises and gradually produces the pressure to sleep in the evening.
During sleep, adenosine is cleared from the brain, which helps us wake up and stay alert.
Caffeine is a powerful antagonist at adenosine receptors in the brain, blocking the sedating effects of adenosine and making you feel stimulated and mentally sharp.
HOW CHRONIC SLEEP DEPRIVATION DEVELOPS
Here’s the problem. If you cut short your normal night of sleep, adenosine is not fully cleared from the brain. With chronic sleep deprivation, adenosine levels continue to rise, creating a persistent sense of fatigue and sleepiness and impairing cognitive function.
The brain adapts to this flood of adenosine by increasing the number of adenosine receptors in an attempt to get you to fall asleep, which of course only makes you feel more tired.
You will probably respond by increasing your caffeine consumption, in an attempt to block rising adenosine activity, which can only be restored by a normal night of sleep – the very thing my patient was trying to cut short.
Sleep deprivation doesn’t just make you tired. It impairs the brain’s ability to consolidate memory. During sleep, your neurons are remodelled and change their firing pattern, which helps burn in the memories that are formed during the day.
Too little sleep can also exacerbate pre-existing depression and anxiety disorders and make people with no previous mental health problems generally more angry and impulsive. One study found that young people who were deprived of sleep for just five days showed an increased response in their amygdala to angry faces compared to their normal baseline state.
The amygdala is a brain region critical to the processing of fear and danger. Intriguingly, while caffeine can’t eradicate sleep deprivation, it does appear to offset some of the harmful cognitive effects of sleep loss on memory.
This may be one of the reasons people think caffeine is working for them: Even if caffeine contributes to their chronic sleep deprivation via its alerting effects, they aren’t (yet) experiencing enough adverse cognitive effects of sleep loss to blame caffeine.
THE STRESS-CAFFEINE-SLEEP-WAKE CYCLE
Few of us are champion sleepers. It’s recommended that adults get seven to eight hours a day of sleep; teens need eight to 10 hours a day; and young children need even more.
In fact, one in three Americans report that they don’t get the recommended number of hours of sleep to feel restored and rested – either because they have trouble falling or staying asleep, or they wake up too early.
The stimulation of modern life doesn’t suddenly vanish the moment you close your eyes in bed. Whether it’s ruminating about what happened during the day or worrying about tomorrow, turning off and relaxing takes a little time.
That’s the normal and near-universal psychophysiologic arousal of everyday life. It’s probably the biggest driving force behind the self-sustaining cycles of morning caffeine, to say nothing about sleeping pills.
Sleep medications such as Ambien, Lunesta and Restoril will knock you out but they are best for short-term use – to help deal with unusual stress that makes us very anxious and provokes insomnia.
But these hypnotic medications, which increase the activity of GABA (the brain’s major inhibitory neurotransmitter) and produce a characteristic calm, are potentially habit-forming and addictive. They can also cause adverse cognitive effects, in learning and memory, particularly among older people.
HOW TO BREAK THE CYCLE
Caffeine is usually metabolised within four to six hours, though drinking coffee throughout the day can interfere with sleep and drive the use of sedating drugs to turn off.
With just a little effort, you can break this cycle. Given the average half-life of caffeine, it’s best to keep your coffee drinking to the morning and try to avoid caffeine after lunch.
Some people are genetically slow metabolisers of caffeine and will have significant sleep-onset insomnia even from early morning coffee; they should probably stick to tea.
The simple truth is that you cannot keep yourself propped up with caffeine indefinitely because the rising tide of adenosine in your brain will become impossible to ignore. When that happens, don’t panic and turn to sleep medication, just give your brain a chance to turn off naturally.
And here’s the most effective trick for falling asleep, which has been studied and shown to be as effective – if not more – than any hypnotic drug.
Don’t do anything in bed except sleep – no reading, listening to music or anything else.
This is so your brain associates the bed only with sleep. Set a regular time for sleep.
If you’re not asleep in 15 or 20 minutes, get out of bed and go to a comfortable chair or couch and read or watch something that’s not too exciting.
As soon as you feel tired, go back to bed and try again. Not asleep in 20 minutes? Repeat this drill until you are.
OSLO (AFP) – Smoke from Canadian wildfires has been detected thousands of kilometres away in Norway this week, the Scandinavian country’s Climate and Environmental Research Institute NILU said yesterday.
“Very weak” concentrations of smoke particles have been detected since Monday, in particular at the Birkenes observatory in southern Norway, researcher Nikolaos Evangeliou told AFP.
Measurements have varied depending on the fires’ intensity, wind direction and precipitation.
“We don’t see serious peaks or large increases… so we don’t see any environmental issue (in Norway) nor serious health hazards either,” he added.
Larger and more powerful wildfires than ever have scorched some 3.8 million hectares of Canadian forests and displaced tens of thousands of residents in recent weeks.
The scale is unprecedented, with some 2,300 fires registered so far this year.
Southern Norway, like much of northern Europe, has also experienced an unusually dry spring and early summer so far.
In southern Norway, no rain has fallen for 16 days and none is forecast for the coming days.
A three-week ban on fires in open spaces was introduced on Thursday.
THE WASHINGTON POST – In a lot of homes, the kitchen counter is one of the few spots that gets cleaned – or at least wiped down – every day. So, it’s a good idea to make sure you’re taking care of yours correctly.
You might actually be doing too much, said president Alan Mayr of MARBLELIFE, a company that repairs and restores household surfaces.
He said about 20 per cent of the company’s clients need professional help because they’ve used an “inappropriate cleaner” on their counters, when experts say a general rule, no matter what type of countertop you have, is to use only water and mild dish soap for daily upkeep.
“Dawn literally could clean your entire house,” said owner of No More Dust Maid Services in D.C Poiette Noel.
Also: stay away from abrasive sponges. Even the scratchy, green side of an average kitchen sponge can damage the surface and remove its protective coating. Instead, use a soft, microfibre cloth.
While dish soap and water are your best bet in most cases, there are, of course, some kitchen messes that require a tougher approach. If you need to perform a deep clean or work on a stubborn stain, here’s what experts recommend for seven common countertop materials.
QUARTZ
Quartz is the most popular countertop material largely because of how durable it is. But “that doesn’t mean (it’s) invincible”, said founder of the American House Cleaners Association Grace Reynolds. She advised wiping up spills immediately and using cutting boards to protect the quartz surface. If you still wind up with a mess, avoid abrasive and acidic cleaners, as well as bleach and vinegar. Instead, use a quartz-specific cleaner.
For tough stains, Reynolds said you can try a bit of Goo Gone, though she advised testing it first on a “small, inconspicuous area” to make sure it doesn’t cause discolouration or other damage. Then, apply a small amount to the stain, let it sit for a few minutes, and carefully scrub it away with a microfibre cloth. Rinse the area with water and dry it with a clean microfibre cloth.
GRANITE
As with quartz, stay away from bleach, vinegar and harsh chemicals when cleaning your granite surfaces. If you need something stronger than dish soap and water, try a granite-specific cleaner. To get a stain out, make a 50/50 mixture of isopropyl alcohol and water, then wipe it onto the spot with a microfibre cloth.
Another option for stain removal: a thick paste (think of the consistency of toothpaste) made of baking soda and water. Start with a heaping tablespoon of baking soda then adding a teaspoon of water, or just enough so that the mixture sticks to the countertop.
Spread the paste over the stain, cover it with plastic wrap and leave it for at least 24 hours. Use a microfibre cloth, water and mild dish soap to clean the paste off. You might need to repeat the process several times, but it’s safe and gentle and won’t damage the granite, Reynolds said.
MARBLE
Marble is “always the most finicky out of all the countertops” because of how porous it is, Reynolds said. In general, if soap and water aren’t working, use a specialised marble cleaner or pH neutral stone cleaner.
A product not intended for natural stone may not have a neutral pH, which means it might dull the marble surface or leave behind spotty areas. (Manufacturers are not required to list the pH level of cleaning products on their labels. You can measure the pH yourself with a pH test strip; some brands link to the safety data sheets of particular cleaning products – which may include pH levels – on their websites.)
Even when only cleaning your marble with soap and water, be sure to quickly dry off the surface – just water can permanently stain it. Some water marks will disappear as the stone dries out, but it could take weeks.
For a surface-level stain, including those caused by evaporated water, use a marble-specific cleaner. Or, try the same trick recommended above for granite: Spread a thick paste of baking soda and water over the stain, cover it with plastic wrap and leave it for at least 24 hours. Use a microfibre cloth, water and mild dish soap to clean it off, and repeat if necessary.
BUTCHER BLOCK
Whether your butcher block counter is finished with urethane or a natural oil or wax, stay away from harsh chemicals when cleaning it, said president of Baltimore Fallen Lumber Paul Timmins. Instead, he advises sticking to a mixture of water and either mild hand soap or dish soap. Anything more can strip the protective coating off the countertop, leaving the wood more vulnerable to stains and other damage.
For deeper cleaning, Timmins advises scrubbing with pure Castile soap and water with “a lot of elbow grease.” To remove stains, he suggested a mixture of a half-cup of vinegar, half-cup of water and one teaspoon of lemon juice. Reynolds suggested cutting a lemon in half, sprinkling some salt on the stain and using the lemon to scrub.
Some stains might require light sanding, plus a new coat of finish. If you aren’t sure what type of finish will match the rest of the countertop, consider hiring a professional for the job.
LAMINATE
Because laminate is man-made – and not nearly as expensive as natural stone – some homeowners assume they don’t have to be as careful with it. But harsh cleaners – from vinegar and lemon juice, to bleach and ammonia – can wear down the surface.
If you’ve got a stain that requires more than soap and water, try baking soda paste: Reynolds recommends making a thick paste, comparable to toothpaste, by combining a heaping tablespoon of baking soda with a teaspoon of water, or just enough so that it sticks to the surface. You can mix it directly on top of the stain, or dab it on with your fingers.
Wipe it away after 24 hours with a microfibre cloth.
For a stain that is “not coming up any other way”, Reynolds said you can try a “magic eraser”. But proceed with caution, since those can cause microabrasions.
STAINLESS STEEL
Even if your entire countertop isn’t made of stainless steel, you can often find it as part of the stove, connected to the rest of your counters. Stainless steel is easy to damage, so don’t assume you can clean it with whatever you’re using on the rest of the countertop. For deep cleaning, use a specialty product or a stainless steel cleaner. For routine cleaning, a wipe-down with mild soap and warm water will do.
Whatever cleaning product you’re using, apply it with a microfibre cloth. “Once you scratch stainless steel, it’s very difficult to remove the scratch,” Noel said. If you’ve already scratched it, you can try buffing it out yourself with a pad, but doing so without causing more damage requires precision. It might be safer to hire a professional.
PORCELAIN
Though it’s more familiar in the United States as a material for tile, porcelain countertops – already popular in Europe – are gaining traction with Americans, according to public relations manager at countertop-maker Caesarstone Lori Shapiro. The material is highly durable, able to resist scratching and tolerate high heats. But you should still avoid strong chemicals when cleaning it, sticking to dish soap and water or products with a neutral pH.
One reliable option for stubborn spots, said Shapiro, is powdered cleaning agent, but don’t apply it directly to the porcelain. Instead, sprinkle some on a damp microfibre cloth and rub it in a circular motion.
The magnitude of the fire in Shelburne County. PHOTO: AFP
CNA – As Canada hurtles towards its worst wildfire season in history, a conspiracy theory has taken off online claiming environmentalists intentionally set some of the blazes.
“I bet a good portion of the wildfires raging across the country were started by green terrorists who want to give their climate change campaign a little boost,” former foreign minister-turned fringe party leader Maxime Bernier said in a tweet.
So far in 2023, Canada has seen larger wildfires than any previous year at this point in the season, with more than three million hectares burned. Tens of thousands of people have evacuated as a result.
On TikTok, a video already viewed almost 20,000 times, claims the fires in Nova Scotia were set “on purpose to push a climate change agenda”.
One article speculates that since 90 per cent of Alberta’s fires could be “human-caused”, there is a possibility that “ecoterrorists” may be behind them.
As wildfires spread in Quebec, some questioned how all the blazes could have started on the same day. One Facebook video with more than one million views blames “a terrorist attack” for the flames.
But Karine Pelletier from the province’s Forest Fire Protection Agency said the causes are still under investigation.
“There are a lot which are caused by humans, but these are almost always accidents,” she said, noting that recent lightning strikes were to blame for many of Quebec’s wildfires.
Alberta Wildfire told AFP unless lightning is involved, a blaze is classified as human-caused.
This does not exclusively mean arson. “It could be related to general causes, including agriculture, forest industry, powerlines, or oil and gas industry, railroad or residential wildfires,” said spokeswoman Melissa Story.
Nova Scotia officials have also said they are still investigating the origins of the province’s fires, which are presumed to be human-caused.
The magnitude of the fire in Shelburne County. PHOTO: AFP
Crazy crisp no-oil chicken thighs. PHOTOS: THE WASHINGTON POST
Ann Maloney
THE WASHINGTON POST – I love crisp fried chicken, but not the mess that goes into making it. Cookbook author Nagi Maehashi feels the same way. When I saw her recipe for ‘crazy crispy no-oil chicken’, I thought it sounded promising, but I didn’t expect it to wow me the way it did. It seemed too simple for that: skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs, salt and pepper cooked in a nonstick skillet. That’s it.
It’s the technique that turns a simple piece of poultry into a dish I now crave. You place the chicken skin side down in the skillet, cover it and cook it, undisturbed, for 10 minutes. Then you uncover the pan and cook it for 20 more minutes until the skin is crackling crisp and golden. You flip the chicken over to give the other side a sear. And you’re done.
“It’s something I learned through Japanese cooking,” Maehashi said of the technique, which allows the chicken to cook in its own fat. She finds it not only tastier, but thrifty, too, because no oils are required.
In her debut cookbook, RecipeTin Eats Dinner, which grew from her popular RecipeTin Eats site, she explained her goal this way: “I want to show you how to make vibrant recipes made with everyday ingredients, spanning cuisines from around the world as well as classic comforts. Delicious recipes with the ‘wow’ factor that are simple to make, cost effective and can often be prepared ahead.”
She launched her website in 2014. She now has more than 4.6 million followers. In 2021, she started RecipeTin Meals, which makes more than 100,000 fresh meals a year for the poor, in Sydney. The meals are delivered through an organisation called One Meal.
“I always hoped I could do some kind of charity, just involved with a not-for-profit, but I never expected to be in a position to do what I am able to do. My work supports my food bank, and I hope to do that forever.”
Crazy crisp no-oil chicken thighs. PHOTOS: THE WASHINGTON POSTAny sauce you like will go well with these simply seasoned crazy crisp no-oil chicken thighs – but this brown gravy makes use of the pan drippings
She takes pride in those meals being nutritious and freshly made, and wants people to realise it can be easy to cook that way at home, making your own sauces, for example, rather than buying ones filled with salt, sugar and preservatives.
Maehashi grew up eating delicious food at home in Japan, but she doesn’t have heartwarming stories of standing at her mother’s elbow in the kitchen. “I didn’t help in the kitchen,” she said. “I didn’t even do the dishes.”
At 18, however, she left home for a job in Australia and reality set in.
“It was a shock to the system that there wasn’t a delicious hot meal on the table every night,” said Maehashi, who worked in corporate finance.
“I taught myself how to cook, found I enjoyed it and started throwing dinner parties. Even if I had a really long day at work, I’d get home at nine o’clock and make dinner.”
Now that it’s her full-time job, she still loves it just as much. “I can cook and shoot all day.
Give all the food I cooked at work away and come home and start cooking. That’s my downtime.”
That doesn’t mean she is spending a lot on food, nor does it mean making multiple trips to the grocery store and stocking up on expensive pantry items. She recommends building a pantry with a dozen or so staple spices and condiments as well as mastering a few basic sauces.
Cooking from scratch doesn’t mean starting from scratch each time. She cites the classic Chinese brown sauce as an example: “With a dash of this or that, it can become an orange sauce or a ginger-garlic sauce… The end result looks so different and takes so different.”
The same is true of Italian comfort foods. She takes a basic marinara, and with a little tweak – fresh basil, parmesan or something to add a little heat – it takes on a fresh flavour.
In her cookbook, which features recipes from around the world, she cross-references ingredients, so that when home cooks end up with a leftover food, they have a recipe that allows them to use it up.
Each recipe includes a QR code that takes you to one of the 132 videos she shot specifically for the cookbook. A quick video can show in a few seconds what it takes 100 words to explain, she said.
She also prides herself on writing recipes that anticipate questions, a skill the comment section on her website helped her develop.
Then why a bound, paper cookbook when the online interaction of video and comments is so useful?
“I really struggled with the idea of whether I should put all of the effort into making the cookbook,” she said, adding that in the end, it was a somewhat sentimental decision.
“I liked the idea of having a physical thing that could be there in the kitchen and gifted,” she said.
While she may not have learned cooking techniques from her mother, she remains inspired by her.
“Even though my mother worked full time, we dined like royalty because she was so creative in the kitchen. And this is why I know it’s possible to make great, fresh food even if you’re short on time and on a budget.”
CRAZY CRISPY NO-OIL CHICKEN
Bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs are Maehashi’s favourite cut of chicken, and this simple, stovetop preparation is her favourite way to cook them because it creates a super-crisp skin. Maehashi likes to eat it with just a sprinkling of salt, but she offers a brown gravy recipe, too. A nonstick pan is best. If you use a well-seasoned cast-iron pan, Maehashi recommends adjusting the heat as needed because cast iron retain heat better and gets quite hot.
Four servings
Active time: 15 minutes. Total time: 45 minutes.
Storage note: Refrigerate for up to four days.
Notes: Make your favourite sauce for this chicken or try Maehashi’s brown gravy, which can be ready in about five minutes.
Make ahead: For even crisper skin, place the salted chicken on a plate, skin side up, and refrigerate uncovered for a minimum of six and up to 24 hours before searing. After chilling, do not pat the chicken dry because then you lose the salt. Proceed with the recipe as directed.
INGREDIENTS
– Four (eight-ounce) skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs
– Heaping one-quarter teaspoon fine salt
– One-half teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
– Flaky sea salt, for sprinkling (optional)
DIRECTIONS
Pat the chicken dry. Turn it to the flesh side and make a slash on either side of the bone and another in the thickest part of the meat, going halfway down into the flesh. Your goal is to create even thickness.
Sprinkle the salt and pepper evenly on each side of the chicken.
In a cold, large, nonstick skillet with a lid, place the chicken, skin side down. Set the skillet over medium heat, cover with a lid and cook for 10 minutes. The chicken juices and fat will render into the pan.
Uncover, then reduce the heat to medium-low and cook the chicken without moving for another 20 minutes, peeking under the chicken after 10 minutes.
If the pan is still looking watery, or if the chicken is browning too fast, adjust the heat accordingly.
After 20 minutes, the liquid should evaporate, leaving only the chicken fat in which the skin will fry and crisp; and the flesh side should be fairly opaque.
Flip the chicken and cook the flesh side until cooked through and a thermometer registers 165 degrees Fahrenheit when inserted into the thickest part of the meat away from the bone, about two minutes.
Transfer the chicken to a plate and let rest, uncovered, for three minutes.
Eat the chicken plain, with a sprinkle of flaky salt, if desired; or serve it with the pan drippings, a favourite sauce, or brown gravy.
To make brown gravy: Prepare the meat as directed. While it is resting, check to see that there are no burned patches in the pan. If there are, carefully wipe the pan clean.
If not, set the pan and its juices over medium heat and melt two tablespoons of unsalted butter. Add three tablespoons of all-purpose flour and cook, stirring until well combined and lightly browned.
Slowly pour in one cup of low-sodium beef broth, stirring constantly. The gravy will thicken quickly. Once the flour mixture is incorporated into the liquid, stir in a second cup of broth.
If you see lumps, use a wooden spoon or a rubber-coated whisk to dissolve them. Taste, and season with salt and pepper, as needed.
Simmer, stirring regularly, until the sauce thickens to the desired consistency, one to two minutes. You should get about two cups.
To make gluten-free gravy, omit the flour. Whisk together one-and-a-half tablespoons of cornstarch with a splash of the beef broth in a bowl until smooth.
Add the remaining beef broth and the slurry to the pan, whisking constantly, and simmer as directed.
