It's been a pretty nice couple of days! The weather is no longer miserably cold, and I can see some of the trees starting to bud. I'm looking forward to my first spring in this new place.
Yesterday, a friend of my brother's invited us to go shopping at an international market. I was excited, because there are several recipes I've been dying to make since getting my own place, but haven't been able to find the ingredients since moving to my area.
Many of the recipes were things that my sister would make regularly when I lived with her.
(In particular, she used oigatsuo tsuyu for a ton of things, and I just haven't been able to find it for a while now. I was unreasonably excited when I found it.)
The OTHER thing I've been looking for is lao gan ma, because of BDG's pepcorn video.
I've never made popcorn from scratch before, and made SEVERAL mistakes.
(my house is still full of smoke as I write this, actually.)
First, I burned a lot of it and my wok is going to be a pain in the ass to clean.
Second, I accidentally added WAAAAY too much chili powder to it. His recipe called for a few pinches, and I added an entire tablespoon because I wasn't listening very well and assumed I would need a lot more than a pinch or two.
It was delicious, regardless. Between the smoke and the overly spicy popcorn I should have been miserable, but it tasted good enough that I just kept eating the non-burned pieces anyway.
(eyes stinging, mouth burning in that clinging, lingering, prickling kind of way, air hazy and nasty smelling from the burned chili oil and flakes and popcorn coating the bottom of the wok)
Such is life, or something.
(I swear I'm usually not this bad at cooking.)