Do you make home-made chicken stock?

Ah-ha - you have it sussed mamie.

Fried rice is popular in cultures where rice is life. Good reason for that, I reckon. You should see how hot they get their woks in Thailand!

By the way, I got the rice is life phrase from some of my adult Thai pupils. I got them to talk about food in English. No-one mentioned rice! When I commented on this and said that we all ate rice three times a day so wasn't it worth a mention, they said something to the effect of "oh but we don't need to mention rice; rice is life."

And I never got any bugs from eating leftover rice in Thailand, in spite of no refridgeration and ambient temperatures in the thirties and forties. Like salmonella, if you know how to reheat the stuff, the germs aren't a problem.

That's generally true Bags but some food poisoning bacteria produce toxins that are not as easy to destroy as bacteria - and it is usually the case with bacterial diseases that its the toxins that make you ill, not the bacteria themselves. (This is the talking to I give myself when agonising over whether to bin something slightly risky)
But the bacteria also have to come from somewhere e.g. other ingredients in a rice salad or biryani, someone's hands etc. So if you boiled or fried the rice it is sterile at that point, leave it in the same container, cover it and chill it, the chances of getting food poisoning are infinitesimal. Once you start sticking utensils in it, mixing other ingredients with it etc, then there us a chance of contamination.

Thanks, jess. I reckon my basic food hygiene must be pretty good then. Tummy bugs very rare. Last one was many, many years ago and I thought it was from mushrooms, but hard to tell. I didn't eat mushrooms for a long time afterwards!

Do you think some people have more upsetable tums than others?

We had a cous-cous salad made on Friday, the left overs put in a container and then fridge. We had some on the Sat. but by Sunday it smelt 'funny' so dumped it. I was surprised that it had 'gone-off'. Maybe the caterers had made it a day or so before?

J's tum is definitely more sensitive than mine. I have the dustbin type.

With things made by caterers for "events", you have no idea how many hands touched it in the making, how many people at the event leaned over it to help themselves and so on. All these people may have been perfectly clean and healthy but perhaps a bug or two was lurking around. What you prepare yourself and only serve up as much as needed, wrapping the rest and storing it at once, there are only one persons germs on.

Some people are more sensitive to tummy bugs. One son-in-law gets anything that is around, and really suffers, the other seems to have a cast-iron stomach. He can eat destructively hot peppers too.

Mamie made some today!! Thanks for tip!

Many years ago we lived in Singapore, courtesy of the Royal Air Force. I watched how the street vendors tested their qwalis to see if they were hot enough to cook on. They spat on them, and if the spit bounced, then the heat was correct. We ate out a lot there with many many friends, and none of us ever got an upset gut.
I gather that has all gone now,

Funny I should spot this today. DH bought a Heston Blumenthal cookery book last week and announced he wanted to make chicken stock. Heart sank, but smiled and said That would be nice. Then he decided we need a pressure cooker, so off we went to John Lewis and he bought one (I left him to it) and thence to Waitrose for all the ingredients. (Can you see where this is going? ) £30 later.........Anyway today he started and it took all early afternoon to chop veggies and put in neat bowls, boiled chicken pieces in pressure cooker which then had to cool for about 2 hours, then added veggies, then it had to cool again and lastly he has to "infuse the peppercorns and parsley. This is taking about 7 hours so far and the cost will be about the same as champagne by the time he is finished if not more by the time you factor in the price of the book. I actually like the "blobs" of stock which I use all the time, but it has kept him happy (I think) although he is also moaning that his back is hurting. Oh I did suggest sitting down to do the veggies, but he knew best.

Ah well Gracesmum it kept him happy. But don't you love those cookery books that seem to assume you have all day, and a team of sous chefs?

Lovely story, gracesmum ! My DH is another who buys expensive cookery books and follows the recipes exactly. He's never happy with the result and when he wants that thing again, he asks me to do it because my method of getting a rough idea of what's going on from the book, and then substituting, making do, ignoring and changing, doing it all in a fraction of the time, and clearing up afterwards, is usually more successful. I guess it's down to practice, as usual with anything requiring skill.

my stock has chicken in it

I tend to agree with JessM as to get any flavour into the stock it needs to be reduced alot for it to taste of anything. A slow cook pot or Aga would do a good job without wasting too much fuel.
Cooked bones, as in from a roast chicken, don't give off as much flavour as raw ones do.