dinner in dimlight

I am going to complain about the sun setting at 5pm until the next daylight savings time. Some "yeah... it's crazy, man" mixed with some "the world is so fucked" with a seasonal sprinkle of "is it bed time already?"

This is me checking out for the rest of the year. Ready for the holiday-in-a-pandemic blur.

circle of life

 Avocado on my discard.

Avocado on my sourdough.

seventytwo knives

Pork floss on toasted croissant from the reserves for breakfast.

Who in the world came up with pork floss?

It is so unrecognizable as meat and so unappetizing in its English translation. The last time I had pork floss was probably well before college. The last time I downed an entire bucket of the stuff in front of the TV like popcorn was sometime in middle school. It just melts in your mouth, exactly like cotton candy. Savory, meaty, stringy cotton candy..... yum, right? Leaving hardly a trace on your tongue so you are free to keep eating until you've found the bottom of the container.

sixtyseven failures

crispy simple sourdough crackers
to eat with the rest of my pate

hazelnut sesame laoganma chili brittle adapted from here


doesn't-look-it-but-very-failed lady fingers

fiftyfour spa waters

Another tagine pate toast + bevvy pairing. This one is yerba mate with a slice of fresh lemon and a slice of candied lemon, a spot of honey, and a spoonful of ginger juice.

And another kind of toast + bevvy pairing. I jumped on the dalgona train. Don't worry, it was actually for a work project I made up. Anyways, I didn't actually know what to do with it post stability monitoring... until I found this long lost last piece of coffee frangipane milk bread from Joyce. And I slathered the coffee fluff all over it, and it was perfect.


Picked some mint from Joyce's ~garden~ to make spa water at home. This will get me through the impending heat wave.

fortythree sciences

Breakfast dessert sampler of the day:
matcha pineapple bun from Joyce, slice of meringue cake, brownie

thirtyfour tortillas

Look
At
This
Tiny
(impractical)
Tortilla
Press
That I got from a hectic market in Mexico City, which is about one million years ago now *insert loudly crying face emoji*

To make tiny impractical tortillas. But they are so cute!
And you can eat like 50 of them since that's how bite-sized things work as I understand it.

thirty flirty and thriving

When in doubt, put an egg on it.

More kimchi tofu stew + even more rice + one sunny side up egg so it's breakfast now.

Lunch appetizer ended up being Joyce's challah French toast and two oolong shortbread cookies, not pictured because it was eaten on the one block walk home... which was actually a feat because the walk from hers to mine is entirely uphill and I had to trade off inhaling challah schmeared in coconut cream for breathing oxygen to stay alive.

twentyfive and thrive

Thrive like baby Scratchy, who is receiving the most love and attention these days. 

What must that be like...?

Just kidding. Anyways. This is a cavernous hojicha and umeboshi loaf. Love the pink speckles of umeboshi. Do not love that I am not smacked in the face with nutty roasty tea aromas. We'll just have to do this one again.

schitt's seventeen

My starter baby (that Kyle deemed Scratchy when I asked him to name it, so Scratchy it is) is tucked to bed in the fridge after these beet and olive loaves.

thirsty thirteen

Someone posted about okonomiyaki on insta... and then I needed it inside me.

Brought me way back to Hiroshima 2018 when Frank and I walked all around the city talking about affirmative action, relationships, etc and completely missed the museum. So before hopping on a train back to Osaka, we ended up stumbling into a tiny okonomiyaki shop that had like six stools set around the giant hibachi grill. And it was mesmerizing to watch the chef layer up six gigantic okonomiyakis at a time.
Picture courtesy of Frank, and it's even more beautiful than I remember:

Luckily I had almost everything I needed to satisfy myself because I'm fucking independent, and I don't need nobody else.

Eaten with a view while finally finishing Real Life.

nine and doing fine

...mostly because I finally got a sourdough loaf* I would like to curl up in.


Sweet, sweet baby boule. I panicked a bit on the scoring, which is why it looks a bit demented. But the ear, the crust, the crumb, the spongey texture, huhnnughhhhhhdrrrooooooooooool.

While that was developing in its warm oven womb, I had another helping of gochujang spaghetti with a fried egg per my own advice from last night.

Tina's offspring

Tina the sourdough starter is still serving me well.

first sourdough

I started my leaven two days ago (3/19) with 15g of Tina II, following The Kitchn as my guide.

Planning these things around life is tricky because Andrew's improv show, two drinks, and two tacos, the leaven hung out for 36 hours. And added the water and flour to autolyse this morning (3/21) (with 5g of yeast to help it out just in case).

Now my precious inaugural sourdough is sitting next to me at work (hey, if Nick can have his coffee beans, I can have my sourdough), where it almost doubled in size before the salt water addition. And it smelled fruity and vinegary when I broke into it to squeeze in the salt water.

Post squeezing:

After third fold:

After sixth and final fold [when I realized I didn't have my gloves to go boxing so continued to babysit my bread instead]:

Do you love how even when the sun is shining outside, the lighting in my kitchen still makes this look like a sickly gray blob?

Half shaped and risen 3 hours and ready to go:

By the way, the dough was velvety. Like.. I-wanted-to-make-pajamas-out-of-it-velvety.

Out of the oven and still crackling:

20 min covered at 500F
Amelia is wrapped up in the end of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas but still kinda distracted by reading recipes and summarizing the movie plot to Amy
10 min at 450F
Amelia is pretty engaged in TBitSP 
15 min more uncovered
Amelia is just sobbing all over the place after having removed the lid of the dutch oven during the final scenes of TBitSP
Cooled to room temperature on cutting board
Amelia is kind of cheered up by the sound of bread #1 crackling, and then proceeds to find a happier movie


Super spongey.
Faintly sour taste.
Needs more crust.
Don't pop all the big bubbles during folding like I did.

discard

Attempting to take care of a starter is an exercise in creativity and resourcefulness. What do I do with all the discarded starter!? THROW IT AWAY? I CAN'T JUST FREAKING THROW AWAY... flour and water. Okay.. just this once. Or twice. Until it's low maintenance, and then I'll make something with it every time I have to take it out of the fridge. Tina II is doing great, by the way. She's not 100% hydrated anymore because I much prefer less pancake batter-y and more stretchy shaggy. Plus since feeding her a bit more flour, I've seen less hooch and more climbing up the mason jar.

So anyways, I had one more Chobani yogurt left from this time, half a lime, and some heavy cream to use up...

sourdough diary

I had resolved to stop buying bread. The caveat to that was that I was mainly talking about grocery store sandwich bread. I still have yet to master a crusty chewy artisan round, but then an SMF post and Pairings event came together and now Sunny has a baby sister, Tina. Tina the sourdough starter.