Because No One Wants to Eat Plain Rice

I made rice as part of my dinner this evening. Rice is a rare culinary staple for me; pasta is my first-choice dinner carb - c'mon, you can just put butter on it and call it a delicious day - closely followed by grainy bread (invariably with butter also).

But tonight I was feeling ever-so-slightly adventurous, so I made rice! I mean, I have put just butter on my rice, and then called it a not-so-delicious day, but I think that as a general rule, rice calls out for something more... Asian.

The soy sauce was already out, for the zucchini I'd made as my appetizer. I added some off-brand sriracha to my soy-saucy rice, then fished around in the fridge for some fish sauce (ha!). Then I ate it, just so. Now that's what I call a decent bowl of rice.

Because truly, who wants to eat plain rice?

Smells Like Farts

My roommate Katherine, our resident Korean, and I had a slight problem just before vacation. We had a whole Chinese cabbage and no time to ferment it before we had to catch a plane. So we did the whole kimchi assemblage process and just tossed all the jars in the fridge before heading out of town.

Our previous kimchi batches had been left out at room temperature for four days or so before refrigeration. The batches were nice and pickle-y, but they weren't quite "real" kimchi. They served as a yummy substitute for the real deal.

To me, the real deal has to smell like farts. It's the fermentation - it releases a bit of sulphur in the process, and you get a nice whiff of it when you open the jar. That fart smell used to be what turned me off from kimchi, but I came 'round, and now that's precisely the quality I look for.

This promptly refrigerated batch wasn't even close to pickled. I got back into town before Katherine, so I picked a small jar and set it out on our kitschy kitchen table until K got back. Every day I tasted some, and it got better and better. When Katherine got back into town, I had her taste kimchi from the room-temp jar and from a fridge jar. She gave the room-temp jar a wholehearted thumbs up. We put all the jars out on the kitchen table for a few days.

Fast-forward a couple days, when our kimchi-uncultured friend Amanda came over for tea. I opened a jar of kimchi for a quick bite, and discovered a nice, farty surprise. I said, "Katherine, it's just like real kimchi! It smells like farts!"

Amanda's face grew a bit sour: "Ugh, that does smell like farts!" she agreed.



Well, it's certainly not apricot jam.

Who's right? Are Katherine and I just overly avid kimchi freaks? Is Amanda just missing out?

Should I get a Twitter? Is this a sign?

Let's face it. I shouldn't get a Twitter account - I can't even be trusted to blog once a month, much less to post my every mundane thought daily on Twitter. But, I sent some texts today to my roommate, Katherine, that lead me to believe that I may be well-suited to the medium.

Read on:

07:48am - Being awake - overrated - Andrenne > Katherine

07:59am - For real - Katherine > Andrenne

10:34am - Caffeine makes me sooo happy. Mm drugs - Andrenne > Katherine

04:42pm - Spinach artichoke dip? Andrenne > Katherine

Diiiip....


Should I get thee to a Twitter account? Or should people lay off the social media?




Me, enjoyin' that coffee.