...

I took more time off unpaid. Too many positive cases in my clients and coworkers. They are at the threshold of needing to go exclusively virtual temporarily based on their own guidelines for staffing levels, but chose not to. I can afford to take the time, so I guess lucky me to get such a long “vacation” (I don’t feel good about the reason, though, of course). By the end of next week, I will have been “on break” for six weeks. I am admittedly enjoying myself again, in spite of everything around me. I have dug down deep into my hobbies and I have been expressing myself in ways that get pushed aside when I am working too frequently.

...

I made some scones yesterday. It’s been a long time since the last time. I used the cherries we dried this summer. It was nice to pull them out and see that they cured perfectly—they were slightly tacky but not sticky. I paired them with almond extract for the flavoring. The cherries didn’t come through as much as I hoped they would, but it’s still a nice combination. I snacked on some of the scones today while we were watching a speedrun of Metroid Dread (we finished it on our own recently—we both absolutely loved it).

We blended our mango habanero hot sauce today. It’s a beautiful yellowish orange. My partner attached the caps to our 250 mL flip top bottles while I ran all of the chunks through our (new ish) food processor in small batches. It requires way too much hand strength to convince the metal that it wants to sit in the holes in the bottles. My partner had to get out some tools. Once I had processed all of the chunks and dumped them in our huge measuring cup, we added 1 cup of apple cider vinegar and 1 cup of the liquid from the fermentation vessel to the puree and whisked it all together. Then my partner bottled the sauce into 6 bottles while I washed the dishes we used in the making process.

It’s really neat to me that fermenting things is literally digesting food partially before I even eat it. While I was taking the solids out of the fermenting vessel, the mango and peppers we put in there when they were crisp and ripe were now falling apart. The mango in particular was easily disintegrating into smaller pieces. I didn’t bother to skin it when I cut it up; the skin was falling away and disappeared into the creamy-looking puree when I blended everything. Fermentation is gratifying in ways I find difficult to explain sometimes. It helps me keep track of time. It ties me to my body and my experience of my body in a collection of ways that aren’t off-putting to me.

We were left with about ½ cup fermentation liquid. We split it and drank it as “health tonic” shots in little glasses (I think they’re called snifters?)—the liquid has a bunch of delightful probiotic guys in it. My heart warmed and quickened soon after I took my first sip. I still feel like I’ve had a cup of coffee many hours later. It was aggressively spicy, but still palatable; definitely salty, but not overly so; the mango came through as a slight sweet after taste, and the ginger was a subtle note over the top of the spice fizzling out across my tongue. My sinuses cleared up completely and my lymph nodes (which are usually swollen) don’t have any noticeable sensation in them for once.

There is one more sauce to blend yet—we have one with Thai chilis, green papaya, garlic, cilantro, and green onion. We don’t have enough bottles to have both sauces bottled right now, so that one has to wait a bit longer. Luckily, this one is also lacto-fermented, so it can just continue to sit in it’s liquid, waiting until we can shelter it in smaller vessels.

I’m really excited for breakfast tomorrow. We’re going to use the new sauce on some sunny-side up eggs and I’m going to matchstick some potatoes then put them in the oven until they are crispy. We have an extra apple in the fridge—I’ll probably slice it into wedges so that we can split it. It’s a simple meal, but I think it will be satisfying. The home chefs I have met that I am inspired by and look up to make everyday things interesting and delicious somehow.

My partner has some nice friends that hosted a weekly brunch as a part of their club that we were invited to frequently before covid started. I couldn’t always go because of my work schedule (also, sometimes I wasn’t up for socializing). When I did go, I was shocked by how much more delicious the main hostess could make her eggs; her pancakes; her egg bakes; her pies; her quiches; her sauted vegetables; her pastries; her cookies; everything tasted better than it was supposed to, than I had ever encountered or produced on my own. She had a way of making use of odds and ends of everything, too.

She let me in on some of her secrets sometimes if my partner and I were there early enough that I could ask if she wanted or needed any help. I think my favorite tip is soaking different citrus fruit slices in orange juice concentrate in the fridge before straining then serving; it increases the citrus flavor in all of the fruit and slightly sweetens sour ones like grapefruit; then make a batch of bubbly orange juice by mixing that juice with bubbly water. She also told me to saute vegetables before putting them into something like a quiche—it preserves their texture and flavor more than if you leave them raw or blanch them.

I asked my partner to pick up two large green cabbages at the store. They got me a large ceramic fermenting crock for my birthday awhile ago. I’m finally going to make a big batch of sauerkraut. I think I’m going to use caraway seeds, garlic, and onion this time?? I don’t think a big batch is the time to experiment, you know? It’s time to do a classic that I know works. Small batches are good for trying something new and exciting.

We haven’t had a “fancy” home-cooked dinner in a long time, and we didn’t really celebrate our 6 year anniversary besides noting that the day came and passed to one another. So, I also asked my partner to pick up some heavy cream, lemons, shrimp, and fettuccine noodles so that I can make them a nice creamy lemon pasta. We have some olive antipasta with peppers and garlic in the fridge to serve on the side. I’ve been making hot chocolate with some cayenne pepper in it lately and they like the ratios I’ve settled on, so I think I’ll make us some with the addition of whipped cream on top as a light dessert.

I’m looking forward to the beginning of the next CSA season. I think we will go with the place we did last year. They had an amazing variety, and the quality was great. I’m excited to have summer off and continue working on my ability to cook from what is available instead of using recipes that rely on store items all the time. I think having to think this way can be really helpful for learning more cooking techniques and what actually works for me. If we get a massive volume of hot peppers again, we can ferment more hot sauces! I want to experiment more with locally grown fruits as the bases.

...

So this sweater I’ve been talking about. This is a picture of my second attempt at the yoke. I don’t know why the quality of the photo took so much of a hit when I downloaded it to my computer, sorry about that. I didn’t do my reductions properly. The issue is the stitch type. I went with the Irish moss stitch for texture and weight, which has to be reduced in sets of two to keep the pattern. So, I’m reducing too quickly and creating the divots with sloppy reduction. I’m going to switch to stockinette stitch (the stitch that looks like stacked letter V’s) for ease of reduction. Hopefully this solves the puckering issue permanently. If not, I might give up on the Irish moss altogether, and rip everything out to start over using an actual pattern. I got some nice sock patterns off of etsy for my next project. While I was on etsy, I found some pretty sweater patterns. We’ll see?

...

Anyway, that’s a lot of words. I’m tired and up many hours past when I normally go to sleep. I’m going to log off for now. I hope you’re finding ways to cope and thrive. Thanks for reading. Seeya again next time.