5 months later, tried this fermented tofu and despite my initial skepticism it was a hit! Funky and salty with the texture of soft feta cheese. I will definitely be making more of this and experimenting with the recipe.

Just got this piece made by @nervousjessica.bsky.social and @nervousjesse.bsky.social and it's delightful, as their work always is.

I've added a new feature to the List Formatter. You can now fetch nested attributes. It's a bit fiddly and you need to use the exact fields names from the Scryfall API, but makes it much more powerful. Making little improvements as the app has proven useful to folks! luckypaper.co/resources/li...

Another day, another bowl of ramen. Some fermentation projects are starting to pay off. Chicken garum was a great addition to Dashi and miso broth. Turnip pickles are my new favorite topping. Fermented hot sauce worked better than expected. (not home made noodles cause I was lazy)

Three new jars joining the ranks of the fermentation station! Attempting to make mirin and experimenting with a few variations with home made rice wine and purple sweet potatoes. I doubt the color will hold, but looks pretty for now. Should be ready in the ballpark of 2 months to 2 years.

After a month incubating, I finished and pressed "chicken garum." It's funky and chicken-y and very reminiscent of soy sauce. I'm excited to experiment with it. Following the Noma guide barley koji and roasted chicken with water and salt were held at 140ºF for a month.

Why doesn't Arena let you look at the top cards of your library after you choose to mulligan? If I don't know if I made the right choice how am I ever going to get better?

I'd love to give the fancy new Powered Cube on Arena a try but cannot download Arena because I can't log into the Epic Games Store, and there's apparently zero way to get support. Isn't that funny! I love how broken all tech is and being constantly directed to talk to chatbots!

Exactly one year ago I started this jar of garlic misozuke from a recipe in Flavorama. Gonna blame Arielle Johnson for this fermentation rabbit hole I've fallen in.

After about three months fermenting I strained and pressed this rice wine. It's interesting. Boozy and funky. Reminds me most of Koream makgeolli. But I'll just call it "Baltimore home style rice wine." Can't be more than one weirdo in this city growing koji in their basement so probably accurate?

So I think I've committed to making "cicada garum" at the next opportunity. 2030 might be a weird year for me.

Checking in on my first batches of miso I started about six months ago. Calling this a success! I'm going to give them some more time but confident about starting some more, and bigger batches so I can share.

Starting my most intense fermentation project so far. I'm only a little bit nervous, but my DIY fermentation chamber is running smoothly and koji growing for "chicken garum" went great. Will check back in a month!

Ok, NOW I'm regretting a little bit not making it to CubeCon this year. Why am I such a magpie when it comes to trophy pins?

Honored to be on Lords of Limited this week, talking about how to approach drafting unfamiliar Cubes!

Queuing up my fourth unique performance of "In C." Feeling normal. Thank you @nhassenfeld.bsky.social ❤️

Been too long since I made a good bowl of ramen: home made noodles, pork, bamboo shoots, and a couple come made pickles - soy mushrooms, zucchini, and turnips. The pickles are a nice bright contrast to a rich dish.

Doing some big cooking projects this last week: carrot cake which came out looking pretty tidy, steamed buns with two fillings as a snack for the cube crew, and an enormous lasagna and snack situation.

Had such a blast at Capital Cube Championships this year, and I'm so excited to add this shiny Top 8 pin to my collection! This is how you bait me into playing three drafts in 1 day. My decks from The Depleted Lands, Tresserhorn Gardens, and Compost Cube.

Had a great time talking about Cube on Untapped Libraries. I feel like I can get in the weeds with fellow cube heads sometimes and it was refreshing to step back and talk about my favorite way to play Magic in a broader way. untappedlibraries.com/episode-009-... @untappedlibraries.bsky.social

Bo ssam, momofuku style. Finally getting some results from the fermentation station, making a pumpkin seed miso sauce and home made kimchi

The fermentation will continue until morale improves. Doing some tasting, mixing, and cleaning. Mostly things are coming along well! The misos started back in May are developing particularly well. I'm learning a lot.

Experimenting with trying to make a rice wine. First koji was cultured on rice, then mixed with more cooked rice and water, held in a hot water bath for a day to sweeten. Finally inoculated with yeast and airlocked At the least hopefully I'll make some rice vinegar and have lees for pickle projects

Started my second batch of shoyu, using yellow peas and oats as an experiment. It's interesting to see side by side with the batch started over a month ago which is well on its way.

Made some pretty good pork chops for dinner last night, along with some sourdough. Best part was the quick sauce from deglazing the garlic, herb, and butter baste with rice wine.

Highlights from INW Cube Fest 2025: stones and stone soup

Spent a long weekend in a cabin with 7 friends drafting 8 cubes. My cube highlight was drafting this brutal control deck, getting another 3-0 in 100 Ornithopters, and winning this sick trophy pin, hand-made by @andy.luckypaper.co

Getting ready for a four day Magic excursion. I'm bringing the magic of microbes. Also a Cube, that's kind of obligatory.

After 5 years of podcasting about Magic and Cube Andy and I are finally setting up a Patreon to hire an editor and keep the show sustainable. I'm so excited for the new show we're recoding for supporters "Magic Doesn't Exist" about anything but Magic. www.patreon.com/c/LuckyPaper...

Adding veggie spring rolls to my list of go-to's to bring to a party. They're easy to make and eat, tasty, fit most diets, and boy do I love just julienning a big pile of vegetables.

I have eaten the steak that was in the fermentation chamber and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me it was delicious so white and so mold

This weekend's fermentation project was a little extreme: steak cultured with koji. It was a good steak, but not as revelatory as the recipe implied. It looked and felt insane. The hit of the night was shio koji marinated chicken which burned almost instantly but still tasted great.

I'm excited about my next koji project, but boy does it scare the shit out of me 🤞

Feeling a mediterraneanish mood coming on. Roasted carrots and turnips with a bright green herby sauce, roast chicken, and my first couple tomatoes of the season.

I'm a little unsure about this one: attempting fermented tofu. The tofu is inoculated with mold (trying koji which isn't traditional), incubated for a few days, and then brined for at least a month to make a funky, salty condiment or ingredient. Tofu made from scratch too, just for fun.

Taking a break from fermentation projects to... Just kidding. Bread is fermentation too. My starter's peaking really quickly in this heat, but this loaf still came out well. Exactly the crumb I'm looking for.

Another little koji experiment: marinating chicken in shio koji, salted fermented koji. Good but not life changing. I'll try a longer marinade next time. Also featuring some home made pita and baba ganoush

The fermentation station continues to expand. I've been experimenting with a bunch of pickled vegetables and also vinegars, fruit wines, and a bunch of koji things including miso and shoyu.

Big fermentation milestone: Made my first batch of shoyu. First koji is grown on beans and toasted wheat, then mixed with a brine and left to ferment for at least four months. Really curious how this will go!

Second attempt at growing Koji was also a success! Experimenting how the grains are cooked. Made small batches of shio koji and amazake from barley and rice koji, respectively. Excited to see how these turn out!

So far in my pickle adventure, I think the best thing I've made are these beet-stained turnip pickles with their greens. They're pretty good on their own, are a punchy, colorful garnish, and make a dramatic dirty pink martini.

Getting a little more serious with some fermentation projects inspired by local forage. Harvested over 4 lbs of mulberries. Attempting a fruit wine. I've been curious about pickled walnuts for forever. I always miss the right time. It's a long, multi-step process and I have no idea how they'll be.

From this weekend: Momofuku style Bo Ssam, roasted pork shoulder lettuce wraps with lots of banchan, including home made kimchi and a bunch of little veggie things.

Working through some light reading. Finished the The Art of Fermentation which was dense but captivating. Moving on to get some more specifics on koji before making and experimenting with it more.

On a real ramen kick. I'm not fighting it. It's immensely satisfying to get to the point of being able roll out noodles in 20 minutes on a weeknight. (not counting a couple minutes mixing the dough and letting it rest a few hours)

Going bigger on my next batch of kimchi cause I've been going through it.

Just got a surprise package in the mail: a whole booster box of anti-fascist spices from my go to spice shop! Talk about modeling your values and not giving into despair. I love these people. www.penzeys.com/shop/about-r...

Home made ramen with roast pork belly and veggies. I added some beets to the tea egg marinade and it came out a little intense but kinda fun. The roasted mushrooms were particularly delicious. Also a good chewy batch of noodles.

Getting more confident in my pickling and started three very different styles last night. Radish kimchi, (nearly) classic kosher dills, and an experimental turnip pickle with beets based on a quick vinegar pickle I love. Also feeding my bread starter and marinating some eggs while I'm at it.

Creative work is valuable because it's hard. There are so many important insights in this.