Hello. I quit my job last week. Several layers of bureaucracy decided my job should not be done virtually despite many of my clients and coworkers having to be out for the past two months either sick or on quarantine, and the fact that I did it virtually fine last year. No amount or type of PPE was going to change the spread at my job due to poor planning and layout. Oh well. I’ll rejoin next contract in like half a year if things are different. Free time until my temp job kicks in in May.
I’ve been doing some ferments. I haven’t figured out why the quality of the pictures I’ve been taking get reduced to the point of pixelated noise in the transfer process, so I haven’t added the few I’ve taken to my ferments page yet. I started a “ginger bug” that I intend to keep alive and bubbling as long as it doesn’t get contaminated or die off. Right now it lives in the fridge. I kind of want to give it a name. It’s a wild yeast capture off the skin of the ginger I’ve been adding to it. My guess is that the culture will shift and gain complexity as I add slightly different strains from ginger that are grown in different places and different seasons. Yay probiotics :)
Anyhow, I’ve done two ginger beer rounds so far with it and will start a third soon. I really want to make one with jasmine flowers in it. I’ve had jasmine ginger ale before, and it’s pretty good. Jasmine is one of my favorite flavors and smells (as long as it’s not the synthetic one—that one gives me a headache).
The sauerkraut I started is at the point where it’s good to eat. I had some with breakfast. I think it’ll go well with what I’m making for dinner tomorrow.
Yesterday for Valentine’s Day, I spent some of the day preparing dal makhani following this recipe from Dassana’s Veg Recipes. My partner and I liked it so much, I’m going to check out the rest of Dassana’s website to start making more of her versions of dishes. I think I might start with her chana masala next week. I love chickpeas.
The dal makhani was so creamy, complex, savory, mellow, and comforting. We ate it with some pita bread that we had in our freezer. After defrosting the bread, the moisture hadn’t redistributed well, so we put it in the oven on the “warming” setting. I had never used this setting before—my partner said it’s good for warming up a lot of bread. It worked pretty well. We had some of our ginger beer with our little meal and shared a couple of things we are grateful for about one another while we were eating. It was a nice, low-key introvert’s dream date haha.
Anyway, that’s all I have for right now. I hope you feel loved, by yourself and others. Seeya again somtime.