Gotta keep the big jars occupied! Pressed a big batch of "barley sake" last night. I'm not sure that's a thing, and I'm not sure it'll be drinkable, but plan to use it to make vinegar and mirin, maybe other projects. We can keep pushing "from scratch" further in the fermentation lab.

New work from the spring session at the Potter's Guild. I feel like I'm improving a lot. Lots of flaws to work on but I think I have a clear sense of what they are which is honestly a satisfying place to be.

If you hate that feeling you get when you realize how long ago something happened, may I recommend getting into fermentation?

After a year of aging I pressed my first batch of shoyu this weekend. The results are actually great. To complete the cycle I started another batch, this time with mushrooms. I think I'll start a new one every couple months to keep it going.

More ramen. As usual home made noodles and broth. Working on my noodle fold for presentation. I'm excited next week to have home made shoyu. One degree further from scratch. Honestly I'm not sure what's next on that journey that doesn't involve quitting my job and buying a farm.

Year two attempting to make mulberry wine from local trees. This time, I smashed most of them and let them start fermenting in a loosely sealed jar for a week. Then pressed and sealed with an airlock. Hopefully we wont end up with vinegar this year. Although thats not a terrible outcome.

New bowl! Gotta put it through the paces with miso ramen with fried tofu, cabbage, and turnip pickles.

Help. My fermentation log has exceeded the capacity of the notes app.

Landing on a shape I like enough, switching to production mode. A lot of these will get culled but hoping for a consistent set of 6-10 sauce dishes.

I love a lunch of little dishes and I love my growing set of hand made little bowls.

My most beautiful batch of koji to date! And god the smell! Time to do some brewing.

Spent a while throwing tiny sauce dishes, just experimenting with different shapes to figure out what I want to make a set of.

After a mere year I'm really excited about how my first batch of shoyu is tasting. I think I'll press and bottle it on its birthday.

Started my first larger batch of miso after making a lot of little test batches over the last year and a half. I'm excited to see how it goes and to have a volume I don't feel I need to be precious with. The fermentation station's looking cozy.

Sometimes the smell of koji gets stuck in my head like a song

Wednesday night pottery party at the guild. Back to one of my potluck go to's to fit the "garden party" theme. Experimenting with some bottle shapes.

Made an amazake with purple sweet potatoes. I love the color of it so much. What should I do with it? It's pretty sweet on its own but could make some beautiful cocktails.

I started my second large batch of shoyu (with some smaller experiments along the way). It's cool to compare this to my first that's been aging for about 10 months. The first batch is coming along well and I'll probably press it in a couple months. But optimistic the next will be even better.

Steak dinner from a couple nights ago. Still feeling satisfied with this meal. Did a good job on the ribeye, and also made fresh bread, braised leeks, smashed potatoes, and a salad with fun pickles.

Second year trying my hand at wax resist egg dying. Lots of room for improvement but I don't hate it!

Checking in on my first batch of shoyu. The flavor is really starting to develop! I think I'll let it go a full year at this point I hadn't stirred it for a couple weeks and the frothy surface looks like an obscure moon of Jupiter. A few days after stirring it separated showing how dark it's gotten

And after a couple months, hand made sake and cups to serve! Gonna call it a good first attempt. I learned a lot on both sides. Looking forward to brewing another batch next winter. I still have another gallon to bottle too.

I knew I was a cube sicko, but wow, seeing it in writing hits differently. 38 unique cubes drafted and 11 trophies at events run with Hedron Network. hedron.network/leaderboard

Nice little dinner of chicken stir fry, veggies, and dumplings. It's satisfying slowly replacing the table with hand made dishes. I guess I need to learn to make plates. Tasted some home made sake too!

We finally have a long awaited update to the Cube Map! Check out how the map has changed in the last year. Explore new features that have emerged and shifted. Find where your own new cubes fall in the Cube landscape! luckypaper.co/resources/cu...

Valentine's dinner: many dishes! Highlights were the beef tartar and pickled shrimp. I also made a cheesecake but forgot to take a picture.

As a byproduct of making sake, I have a lot of lees, so experimenting with some ways to use it. Kasujiru: a soup of lees, stock, pork, and root veggies. Kasuzuke: essentially using salted lees as a brine to pickle vegetables. The next stage of fermentation seems to be going well too!

My partner requested tortilla soup and we're not taking any shortcuts. Poached a whole chicken, picked the meat, bones back the pot to simmer for the broth, cooked a pot of beans, blended some chilis, made fresh tortillas. And why not put pickled red cabbage on top? Goes with literally everything.

Completed the next steps in this batch of sake. Strained it through a fine filter, pressed, and transferred it to smaller fermentation jugs for the next stage. As is, it's pretty tasty! A little strong and dry — not surprising — but we can make some adjustments. Now time to make kasuzuke.

Been trying out some new dishes while putting together my valentine's day menu. Beef tartar's a winner. Then taking it easy making some basic ass spaghetti with red sauce. Can't be beat. (I mean, I made the noodles and sauce from scratch, but you know)

Interesting accident in the pottery studio. This pot buckled perfectly symmetrically. I wonder if this could be replicated and controlled to do something interesting. The folds were interesting from the outside too. Also finished a little urn I'm very happy with!

The little tiny bit of grim crushing despair I feel every time I search for something and the first suggestion is, without fail, "__ recipe easy" really starts adding up.

Simple breakfast, leftover dumpling filling fried up in a patty with pickled cabbage. Decided I liked the size proportions of the bowl so spent some of my time in the studio trying to make some improvements on it. It could work better with chop sticks.

Sometimes it's fun to zoom out on my whole cooking photo library and appreciate almost a decade of stuff that I've cooked. Cakes, steaks, lots of stir fries, those couple times I tried to learn to make rolled omelettes, noods, dumps, soups, and lately a lot of pickles.

"Almost graupel" has been my favorite thing on the internet for at least a decade. It always hits. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graupel

The sake project continues! After a series of additions we're entering the main ferment. My big fancy new jar makes all my other fermenting jars look tiny. Cups are trimmed. Consistency's not perfect but I'm learning things.

Woke up with a serious bout of graphomania this morning. Am I writing a cookbook? Or maybe a book on food philosophy!? Who knows! Check back in on me in like 2 or 3 years.

The beginnings of a big project. First attempt at making sake, and cups to go with it. Also a flower pot, cause I was exhausted of doing tiny things. Disregard the flower pot.

How am I ever going to learn everything before I die?

I'm a little embarrassed when I break down a chicken the wings usually end up in the stock bag. What am I going to do with four random wings? Apparently fry them up in the wok with a little salt and corn starch for a little appetizer while prepping the rest of dinner.

I made a new little MTG App. My simplest but probably most useful. Ever quickly type out a deck or trade list, but you can't upload it somewhere cause card names aren't exactly right? Run it through the spellchecker to validate and auto correct every card name! luckypaper.co/resources/sp...

Had a craving for dandan noodles and they came out particularly great. I improved my noodle workflow too. Turns out it's easier and takes less counter space to cut the noodles to length first and then run them through the cutting roller.

Back in the pottery studio! Session one results:

New year, time to get serous. BIG JAR acquired.

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.