Hot whiskey, lemon, cloves, and sugar in a well-worn Mello Joy mug. It’s almost worth the sore throat that brought me here. If you need me, I’ll be at home, wrapped in wool and flannel, not speaking today—which, in truth, suits me just fine.

Picked up a new print in Oaxaca from Galería Tëmenk (C. de Manuel Bravo N° 301). Did a quick condition report and have taken it in for framing. I’d been on the hunt for a short and wide woodcut print (alligator maybe?) for a blank wall, but liked this one. Title: Luis. Maybe later, alligator.

Drove this loaner all week. Smooth—as expected from BMW. But mostly video screen controls. I do not like this trend. My first car was a 1972 Beetle, a machine of gears, levers, and knobs I had to strong-arm into turns. Ima stick with my old car; my muscles know the feel of it almost better than I do

Truffling a few more eggs for Saturday’s breakfast: œufs brouillés à la truffe. Stuff a whole winter truffle in a sealable container along with as many eggs as fill fit. Seal it. The porous shells allow the truffle’s aroma to permeate the eggs overnight. Bain marie w plenty of butter.

I have to be careful when reading esoteric food nerd material, because I will decide “I need that” when, in fact, I do not need that.

Benton’s bacon with toasted bâtard. Eggs truffled overnight in their shells, then slowly cooked with ungodly amounts of butter in a bain marie (yeah, ok, a mixing bowl set over a stock pot). More truffles shaven atop. I do not go to the gym to get ripped; I go so I can eat like this.

Kakushi from my childhood: butcher’s twine cut from a roast after cooking were saturated with fat, salt, and roasty, toasty goodness. My mom knew to save them for me (little pig that I was) to munch on. Did an 8-bone pork roast last night. Did not chew the twine. But hard to shake the memory.

A small wedge – the tiniest slice, really – of calamansi pie to wind down the night. Calamansi from the garden and cream whipped just enough to hold its shape. Almost.

Bienvenidos / Cerrado Schrödinger’s vaquero.

Paused an Instagram reel and it looks like Nigella has finally simply snapped at all the cooking.

Oh mama, I'm just having fun On the stage in my heels It's where I belong

We’ve two lime trees. One is in the open and yields a decent crop of heavy, fat limes. The other stands in front of a west-facing garden wall basking in reflected heat through the day. Buckets of fruit. As with people, even just a little margin can make a world of difference.

“What happened,” my husband began as he pointed to a flat, empty bag on the kitchen counter, “to all the pretzels?” Come on, man. You know what happened.

Sometimes you eat for pleasure, sometimes for fuel. And sometimes, you eat oddments to make space in the fridge before holidays. I will be taking no questions at this time about my leftover pizza and baked beans dinner.

We have a Brazilian pepper tree that straddles a property line. Shades out solar panels, invasive, is awful for allergies. Privacy obsessed neighbors are adamant that it remain. So the red line is for the tree guy: take it back to the property line. Don’t care that it’ll look like half a lollipop.

My car is in the shop, but the loaner has this nifty little whiskey pouch in the boot.

Li hing gummy bears from Aloha Kitchen by Alana Kysar (2019): a pound of gummy bears enwettened with warm water in a colander then tossed with red li hing powder (in function, a sort of distant Hawaiian cousin to Mexican chamoy).

Splash of Cognac in the wrong glass.

Happy hour. Flannel, denim, Red Wing boots (the Iron Rangers, all broken in). V. manly. Poured a Cognac into a jigger just now and let out a soft, involuntary moan. Cognac is so preposterously good.

“Luckily I have kids…” Five stars! I can only hope for such a glowing review.

How I know I’m not in Pennsylvania anymore: neighborhood grocery store only has a single bay devoted to pretzels. And not even the whole thing; there are pita chips and Cracker Jacks mixed in there. If we were in Pennsylvania, the pretzel options would run seven football fields long (~770 m).

This morning’s reading: another small book. This one covers recipes for tiny spice cookies—Pfeffernüsse/pepernoten/pebernødder—brought to North America by 19th century immigrants who knew winter kitchens. Norma Voth’s 1978 ‘Peppernuts: Plain and Fancy’ Full citation in the alt.

We what, now?

This morning’s reading: Tetsu Okada’s 2012 bunkobon ‘Meiji yōshoku koto hajime: Tonkatsu no tanjō.’ Introduction and adaptation of western food to Meiji-era Japan, focus on tonkatsu. Just small enough to slip into a pocket. I want more tight-focused, small food books vs big, honkin’ modern tomes.

8am service call for my car’s was open. Pass. I was awake, but if I took that, bulgogi onigiri at the grocery store near the shop wouldn’t be ready. You can’t just run errands willy-nilly. Plan trips around town to take advantage of bakeries, ramen shops, ice cream shops, etc on the route. 10am.

This morning’s reading: Norwegian Baking through the Seasons by Nevada Berg, 2023. Breads, cookies, cakes (e.g., apple w salted gin caramel, dark chocolate/beer), but buns aplenty, incl custard-topped solboller, juniper berry sugared cabin buns, coconut/custard skoleboller, black currant buns.

Midwest. Corn fed. Beef house. At your service.

This morning’s reading: Traditional Japanese Seasonings and Condiments. Technical, academic (as writing about umami often is), but approachable for general food nerds who geek out about ways to enhance or modify flavor. Overall happy with it.

An art conservator once told me, apropos of clients doing dumb things to their collections, of one who had put a discolored sandstone statuette through her dishwasher. It dissolved. Gone. Arrived with a bag of the sand left in the bottom of the machine, asking for the figurine to be restored.

Morning in San Diego.

Not even 5am and I’ve come across my first Robert W. Chambers joke of the day. I don’t think I’ll find one better.

I have started reading this book eight times. Eight times I have put it back down. ‘No one ever showed you Y.’ Yes, they did.‘You were never taught X.’ I was. ‘Here’s how you were taught.’ That did not happen. ‘No one ever does this.’ Brother, I did it not six hours ago and I’ll do it again.

As handy as they are when they’re fresh, those dust removal gels eventually start sticking to everything, not merely dust. Might be time to throw a retirement party for this tub.

Reading Mrs. Beeton this morning. All those bookmarks bc she’s a fiend for giving what seems like a simple five-ingredient recipe, but one ingredient is something like (463). Then you go to entry number 463 and it’s a ten-ingredient recipe that includes (105). Precursor recipes all the way down.

Is it even December in San Diego if someone doesn’t bring home 30 pounds of homemade lumpia?

Am I poly? Pfft. Yeah. Poly baking a lot of cookies the next two weeks.

Insomnia night. ‘Tis the season. Ferociously, monumentally wide awake—a catastrophe of awareness—since 3am. Chasing a few ZZZs when the contractor called to say: no action today.

Stripping cast-iron coat hooks from my grandfather‘s workshop. Spent $4 at a Goodwill store on a pot I didn’t mind getting janky, scattered a handful of baking soda/bicarb in it, poured in boiling water from the kettle, and let them simmer 15 minutes.

Let's get this bone, an unhinged joint between appetite and omen, between juke and jive.

Lil tahdig and lamb shank never did any harm. Well, sure. To the lamb. Obviously, to the lamb.

After 25+ years of sporadic odd jobs, my old German kitchen shears had grown dull, lost their lustre, and taken on a blush of rust. Eight minutes and a few licks on Japanese whetstones brought back their sparkle and edge. As long as the stones are wet, I might as well touch up a few knives.

I used to collect netsuke, little Japanese carved toggles. Here’s one in the form of an octopus. I was once about to buy one made of ivory that cost as much as a car when I realized…these serve me no purpose. I like them, sure, but it’s a stretch to say they bring me joy. Never bought another one.

Popped into a local bar that’s gone all Christmas themed. Strung from the ceiling, plush bears have been hanged by their necks, presumably in punishment for unspeakable crimes, the work of some aspiring Albert Pierrepoint among the barbacks, a warning to bears: tread lightly.

Lil pot of smoked turkey and andouille gumbo for when them lunchtime pangs hit.

About three weekends out of five, late into Sunday night, the thought hits me that, once again, I forgot to make kolaches. Not this time. This weekend, I have nearly fifty pounds of flours on hand. Might even crank out some klobasniky.

Solar panels on the roof. Induction cooktop on the kitchen counter. Smoked turkey carcass, onions and celery that needed clearing out. Turkey bone gumbo underway and damned near free. Well. Paid for, anyway. I did have to buy the andouille and, because green bell peppers are vile, some reds.

Getting that turkey bone gumbo underway with special guest appearance of about a pound and a half of andouille sausage as thick as your wrist, straight from Jacob’s in LaPlace, Louisiana

We‘be acquired another Sea Cod shirt over the weekend. Local business. Buddy works for them and drops off swag. Seafood, I’m guessing. Given the smiles I get from guys everywhere from the gym to Costco while wearing the trucker’s hat, it seems they enjoy enormous good will here in San Diego.

Val knows what’s up. This just came, a nice note about my ginger pie. It’s not too late. You could make one for Thanksgiving. Or, you know…the weekend, a birthday, your cat’s quinceañera. You don’t really need an excuse. Just make one when the mood hits. Link to the recipe ⬇️

Had it all spellchecked and everything. Realized that my experience made it imperative that I not get in on that action. Anyway, I should probably go get milk before the shops turn busy today. The good stuff. 6% fat. Treat yo self.