A lot has happened

Since last I posted. I'll almost certainly miss a great deal, but that's okay; this is just for me.

I'm all healed up from surgery, and working my way back up in terms of running long distances. Last week, I had 3 8.6km runs; it was the third consecutive week of regular running, so this week I'm taking a rest week and dialing the total back. Today was my biggest run of the week; I ran to work, with pack, for the first time in a long time. Today was also the first day since my surgery that I did 100 reps of all my strength training exercises. I think I'll settle on that for the rest of the week, and possibly next week, and then bring the 10-pound weights back into the crunches and squats.

There was a protest and a counterprotest in Boston not too long ago; the usual extremists versus extremists nonsense. I went as a street medic, and helped out with a few minor things here and there. There's definitely an established street medic group, but they left me alone and I left them alone. Good. They almost certainly have the same political leaning as every other such group I've encountered, and I want nothing to do with any group that might restrict the sort of person I would be able to help.

I tried making and dehydrating a couple pasta shapes. One was a sort of miniature lorigghitas (yep, that's spelled wrong), and the other was just some random whatnot shape made with a fork. Both dehydrated well, and they cooked up okay. I think I need to spend more time kneading the dough. I've also been dehydrating a lot of vegetables (asparagus did not go well).

This last Saturday, I went to a Korean BBQ restaurant; it was fantastic. Makgeolli, maybe two dozen sides dishes, pork belly, beef...it was fantastic. Earlier that week, I went to Wisconsin, and had one of the best steaks I've ever had (not that that's why I went). I really need to get to the H-mart up in Burlington and buy the ingredients for a truly big batch of kimchi. The dehydrated kimchi I made a while back has been a fantastic addition to various things, particularly instant noodles.

I bought a massive chunk of beef suet, straight from the cow. I rendered half of it using a wet method, and half using a dry method, both in a crockpot. Frankly, the results seem comparable, and the dry method was easier, so I'll probably use that going forward. Now I just have a few big slabs of tallow in the fridge and freezer at work; I'll probably bring in some jars, melt the tallow into them, and bring them home to keep at room temperature.

I've also been reading a good deal about ramen; not the instant noodle kind, but the seriously filling and delicious kind that's assembled from various ingredients. This morning, I boiled 3 eggs for 7 minutes (complete with the pinprick on the large end), stirring them for the first 2 of those, and then quenched them in ice. I then peeled them, put them in a jar with water to cover, an added 10 percent (ish) of the combined egg/water weight in tamari, and 8 percent of that weight in mirin. They should soak/cure for a couple days before I try them. I also put 5 grams of kombu to soak in 500 mL of water at room temperature; I plan to try boiling some dried shiitakes in the water, then adding some good miso to see if I can get a good broth. I also made some "baked soda", or sodium carbonate, by baking some baking soda for an hour at 350F. It could come in handy for making ramen noodles.

I bough a squeezo food mill; I can hopefully use it to make tomato paste and crabapple leather, among other things.

I'm sure there's more, but I can't think of it right now.