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Made my first meal with my wok. I perused for over an hour in Kenji’s new book about the wok, but I didn’t have the ingredients for any particular recipe I wanted to make. So, instead I made a mashup meal that I thought might be good - mushrooms, bell peppers, and onion served with chickpeas. For seasoning I tried to copy the sauce from the eggplant recipe of Kenji’s that I had previously made. During the meal I noticed a lot of the black char on the bottom of my wok peeling off and becoming a part of the dish in small specks which made me realize that was not the seasoning layer, but just a layer of burnt food that had then peeled off the seasoning I had done to it. So I realized I would need to do some reseasoning of the pan. I felt that it was good to make a mistake like this so that I can better learn the process of using and maintaining a wok effectively. I am surprised I didn’t set the fire alarm off as I did it on the stove this time and my apartment got a bit smoky before I realized I should have more than one window open for airflow! A nice thing I learned about my stove is that it does provide pretty good heat for a wok and I actually can’t use it on fully high otherwise it seems to get too hot! I guess this temperature control is another skill to learn. The meal did turn out reasonably well considering I was making it up as I went (with inspiration from Kenji’s book)!

Daily Listening

This new Luna Li album has been very solid - I especially like the track Silver Into Rain.

Daily Reading

One more chapter of The Mysterious Island and more fun mysteries, but a big tragedy! I love how episodic novels are written so that every chapter leaves you with some hook to want to continue.