The second projects day, Chinaton trip, unreasonably large lunch [Mon 7]

Got up at nine, the six hours of sleep wasn't enough but couldn't force myself to sleep again. Out of my bed at ten in the morning.

Made a massive out-of-control lunch that turned out to become something very different than what I originally intended. I wanted to use the bean chips bought from Aldi the previous night, so got together ingredients for a nachos. The first mistake. A can of refried beans, tons of tomatoes, chilli peppers, pickle, onions, cheese, feta cheese squeezed, the works. Wanted to layer it well, like a professional dish, didn't have the proper ingredients, so decided to 'mix' them all. Second, and the fatal mistake for the dish.

Despite heating the dish in the oven for a long time at relatively high temperature, the chips were very soggy or had disintegrated permanently. Not just the regular dis-integration, mind, they had dissolved into the rest of the 'goop' quite well so you couldn't even tell which was the beans from the jar and which was the beans from the chip. I forgot that regular tortilla chips are designed to be moisture-resistant for exactly this purpose, and their texture is different too. Regardless, ate the dish and it was damn good, despite it being upwards of four-thousand calories. Scooped up the mixture with the other chip I got from Aldi so in the end it all worked out. Still have more than half the dish remaining, for lunch and even dinner tonight as ingredients of a burrito, so that was the one positive outcome of the whole fiasco.

Made chilli-water, the first good use case of my kombucha vinegar. Cleaned up kombucha vinegar too, over the past year it had accumulated biofilm and yeasts from its natural fermentation despite me having 'pasteurized' it. Now it definitely does not have any floaters or the kind.

Packed up from the previous day's projects, so I've now got a jar of dehydrated lime, candied garlic, and dehydrated jalepenos and ginger. Unclear what I'll be doing with the rest.

Watched tv and talked to friends all over. Thought for several hours if I wanted to really go to Chinatown and how exactly I'd do that. Plan was almost cancelled. Listened to Nepali music for a bit,w atched tv, got so bored I needed to leave the house. Took the 95, sullivan, chinatown and then finally the c-mart near south station after 1 hour of reluctant journey. It was closed due to labor day. So pissed. I've written about the Chinatown situation in one of the previous posts.

Got two dessert buns at the bakeries near there. Walked to Jia Ho which is the other grocery there and got all my ingredients. I'm now ready to make kimchi finally. Also got them chinese yeast balls, ready to make rice wine under perfect circumstances.

Walked to Boston common, chilled there for a bit as I ate my buns and repacked my bag. Many Emerson students chilling and milling about in the park, all socially distanced. Made me happy.

Red Line to Davis, 89, and walked home. Talked to PK and BB, caught up with PK who is back from is fun trip to VT.

Worked on the bananas. Peeled the bananas, blanched the peels in salty water couple of times, cooked them in sugar syrup. I missed the blanching in sugar syrup so all the hard work in blanching was gone and the peels oxidized. Tried dehydrating them in the oven over night, they're still quite wet and sticky the next morning.

Mashed all the bananas, added a LOT of sugar don't even want to say how much, and cooked for two solid hours, until it was almost burning. It did burn a little at the bottom when I wasn't' paying attention but one could pretend the taste is caramel. Left it aside to cool for overnight, just like the peels, wrote a bunch and went to bed. Last I remember checking time was at 7.30.