i hope you eat good food, grow beautiful things, and have more love than you know what to do with.
It’s a northern Atlantic blowfish (non-poisonous flesh but don’t eat the organs even though it’s tempting) year in the Great South Bay of Long Island! They come in large droves, in cycles of about every 3-5 years. This means… there’s not much else in the …
I’ve really been exploring some dishes from my childhood, and this is a simple summer dish that just goes deliciously with some white rice. It’s a chilled side dish that’s really quick to put together! I don’t really have much to say about it other …
Thursday, September 2nd, 2021:
I’ve been doing trial runs of the AirBnB and decided I really, really enjoy it. Most of my guests have been very private so I’ve left them alone and in general they’ve been pretty good. However, a big project that I’ve been waiting for has been the get the back lot redone so I’ve put receiving guests on pause.
The back lot… is dirt. Overgrown with a brick patio that’s broken in spots. I had been conflicted over whether to do a gravel lot with crushed bluestone, which is cheaper but requires way more maintenance, or do pavers. In the end, pavers won out because they can last for 50 years or more, but I’d have to replenish the bluestone every 5-6 years so cost wise it worked out to be the same. I didn’t do concrete or asphalt because then I’d need a site plan with an engineer since it would not permeable and I’d have to get a permit to do it.
They’ll also be using black pavers to mark out lines for 5 parking spaces (did I mention I really like these guys? They did the front as well so shoutout to Flawless Masonry for coming up with great ideas to make the experience even more, dare I say it, flawless?)
I also needed the chain link fence removed which they will be doing as well, and ripping out all the vegetation and grading it.
The space after the pavers will be graveled with bluestone and I’ll have a shed put up (up to 144sqft before needing a permit.) A chicken/duck coop and a quail coop will be next to it, plus annual raised beds. Then towards the middle of October (if I can wait that long), I’ll begin having the plants put in. I’m very excited to see what’s going to happen since I’ve been waiting for over a month to get scheduled for this!
Around 9:00am I heard yelling and Adam shout that they might have collapsed the cess pool… except I don’t have a cess pool and when I looked out the window, there was a huge water filled sinkhole… right where our car was parked overnight and moved this morning. The weight of the bobcat must have collapsed it in. I had been wondering why I didn’t have flooding the way I normally do and it looks like this is where all the water went! This is way too much excitement for me. They broke up the patio pavers and filled it in, so it will be extra, extra stable.
Unfortunately the survey company is delayed and will be putting property stakes a few days later than they said, so I have to reschedule the fence people.
Then they laid down RCA to keep everything stable, and then gravel. It has to be drive-able since it will be a parking lot, so they couldn’t use big blocks (smaller blocks keep the weight distributed more evenly.)
Friday, September 3rd, 2021
Another day! They removed the side fence and have ripped out most of the brush on the side. They also started spreading the mulch around for me. Gravel’s been spread around so after everything else is done, I only have to wait for the paving blocks to come in and then we’re ready to rumble.
I was told by the foreman that it’s going to take a couple weeks to get the paving blocks in because materials are at a shortage right now. Just as well since this way the fence people can get their work done without worrying about damaging the new pavers. Otherwise I’m excited at how good this looks so far!
Monday, Sept 6, 2021
I hate waiting and my brain goes into overdrive so I decided to take this time and get the house rules and manual binder ready, as well as collect menus from the restaurants I like in the area so guests know what there is to eat. The survey company confirmed that they will drop the property stakes on Thursday, and the fence people will do one last walkthrough before work starts the Tuesday after. Once that’s done, I’ll start fall planting! I also picked up a lovely vintage style wrought iron bedframe for the downstairs unit—one of my guests reviewed the place as “whimsical” which means I really accomplished the feel I was looking for there!
Thursday, Sept 9, 2021
The survey company came and dropped stakes in HOT PINK. One more thing that’s coming together! Turns out there was a stump (which was a tree I took down) in line with the property boundary which explains why the previous chain link was crooked, but now that it’s cleared, the fence should be fine!
I’ve also been trawling Facebook Marketplace for a chicken/quail coop for cheap but haven’t come across anything I like. I’m also itching to buy ALL THE TREES AND BUSHES and if luck will have it, I should be able to begin that part in two weeks!
Friday, September 10th 2021
Everyone in my house (except Adam) is sick but I just got news that a local nursery is starting their end of year sale so I have my fingers crossed that I’ll be better by Sunday so I can begin planting!
Monday, September 13th 2021
Trying to perfectly time sales can be a fruitless endeavor. But today I came away with a boon. A local nursery was doing a sale so pots of herbs were only $3 each. Of course I went crazy and ended up buying 30. I also got 3 peach trees for $30 each, and I will be trawling different places in the next few weeks for more fruit trees! I know it’s silly to say, but with gardening… this place finally feels like home.
The fence person came and saw some more things that had to be changed. The berm turns out to be too close to the sides and the back so that will need to be moved, and there is apparently some concrete that needs to be removed so now this pushes back my plans ANOTHER FEW WEEKS and my crippling anxiety makes me want to freak out. It’s not the fence dude’s fault of course, he wants to do everything perfectly and he’s right, of course, which makes it all the more infuriating for me when I just want everything finished.
The good news is I didn’t plant the things I wanted to plant on the berm yet, so I got that going for me because otherwise I would have been very upset.
Thankfully, a landscaping company that’s very close by will do everything this coming Monday. Adam tells me not to worry, that these are non-problems, but Fall is coming obnoxiously fast and I can’t keep up with it!
I have been pissed off all this week because shit has gone sideways to the point where I just went “fuck this!” and decided to just do what I’m gonna do.
First, while the landscaper removed the berm, they did not remove the concrete curb nor the stump they had promised to grind the day they promised to. Then they ghosted me. Me and Adam ended up renting a jackhammer and taking out about 15 feet of the curb ourselves before we realized… there was more.
I have been unable to reach the the fence people, and they had failed to notice the curb extended further than they said it did, and they got me wondering if it’s even necessary for ME to spend even more money to remove the curb. After being unable to reach the sales rep for several days, I called twice, and I understand that a lot of construction based companies are swamped right now and I don’t mind being delayed but at least give me an update. They said they’d get back to me both times and didn’t.
The telephone/cable wires collapsed in front of the building, and after harrowing calls to Verizon, they managed to fix it.
So in my anger, I just began working on what I planned to do anyway—I called the paving company and told them they can start whenever, it’ll be the fence company’s problem to install it through the pavers. At the very least my paver is super honest and said he won’t be able to start for another two weeks (but the pavers would be dropped off today) which gives the fence company some more time to respond. I sent them an email saying it would even be fine to just install the posts for now—it’s just that otherwise they’ll have more work to do to deal with the pavers. If they don’t respond by this afternoon, I’ll probably start escalating.
I also picked up two heavy duty rabbit hutches for real cheap (retails for $600 each, got both for $200) so at least I got that going for me. (For quail.)
Then I started getting my plants in the ground. It was very meditative actually—soak the plant, dig a hole, water the hole, put the plant in the hole, cover the hole, water the ex-hole. About halfway through, the landscapers people showed up to grind the stump… a heads up would have been nice instead of me being super pissed off the whole time. I also put together the metal raised beds which will be for my annuals (tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants) and invasives (mint, raspberry, sunchokes).
As a pleasant surprise, the landscaping people came back to rip out the bush and grind the stump. They did not do the curb so I had to get a demolition crew in to do that. After they removed the curb, I found out that there were big ol’ rocks under that, which I ended up just digging out myself because I’m really, really done dealing with this. I called my mom and said I completely understand why my dad ended up buying his own backhoe and other machines for the farms in Costa Rica, and why he sometimes finds the need to hijack them and work on shit himself.
The fence people finally called back and they’re scheduled to come see and install everything.
On the plus side, I got 40 quail eggs in the incubator! They’ll hatch around October 15th and should mature around Thanksgiving which is the only good thing that has happened this week.
Monday, October 4th, 2021
It has simultaneously been the longest and shortest week. The fence people finally got me scheduled in for the 12th, which I am extremely excited about but it really feels like forever. Adam is all, “It’s only been a month and a half since you started doing the back! It really hasn’t been that long.” Okay, but it feels like I’ve been stuck in purgatory.
A super weird thing happened last week where a pair of huge white dogs showed up in my yard. They weren’t well taken care of (dirty and with mange, missing patches of fur) and spraying EVERYWHERE. A bunch of my neighbors stopped to look (we’re on a busy street and everyone was worried they’d get hit by a car.) They were bizarrely attached to me, and when I opened the lobby to keep them inside while we figured out what to do, they waltzed right in like the owned the place (I thought I’d have to force them in) and would come to me when I called them. One lady showed up and said she knows where they live and they get out all the time because the owners don’t take care of them and that she can take them back to them. I ushered them into her car (RIP, her car was clean before this and I can only imagine the fur and smell of intact male dogs) and off they went. I have half the mind to find out where they live and ask if the owner is willing to sell them to me so I can actually find them a good home. They would be gorgeous and sweet dogs.
Out of the 40 eggs, only 19 were fertile so I’ll have to start another batch after this. I need to pick up gamebird starter today since they’ll be hatching next week.
Fall is my favorite season for transplanting because the cool weather keeps the plants from freaking out. I still have to get a bunch of trees in the ground but we’re almost done! I went fishing for more puffer and buried the discards near the fruit trees for a super boost of fertilizer.
We went to pick pumpkins and had a blast.
Tomorrow’s the day for the fence to be installed so I’m really excited. My tree orders from Stark Bros came way earlier than expected so this is good because I can get them in the ground asap once the fence has been installed. I’m just systematically putting plants in the ground now, but I really should be mindful about how much work I’m doing… digging holes until muscle failure isn’t fun. Unfortunately it looks like some areas are compact and/or have a lot of roots, so I have my work cut out for me in my plans to plant the whole backyard.
Quail eggs should be hatching in the next few days (we’re on day 14 right now, 3 more to go) so I’ll need to get their setup ready.
Unfortunately this group’s hatch rate doesn’t seem to be great so far, so I ended up purchasing hatching eggs from Myshire Farms which are supposedly the gold standard for coturnix. Even though I know it would have made more sense to do the jumbos since they could be feather sexed, I couldn’t help but choose the variety color mix. Oh well.
We also carved the pumpkins we picked out! Since everything is Ghibli themed, it only seemed right I’d do a Calcifer one for my (non)moving “castle”. Sophie took a look at her finished one and went “That’s kind of hideous, isn’t it?” which was hilarious.
Tuesday October 12, 2021
Work has begun! It will be done over the course of two days—the posts go in today and the concrete has to set, the panels go in tomorrow! Then I can get the paving people in. After they’re done tomorrow, I’ll finish putting in the trees, and then start setting up the raised beds for the invasives! It’s all coming together and the anxiety (which caused some jaw clenching in my sleep apparently) will melt away… for the time being.
I also joked I was going to forget what day the quail was supposed to hatch and what do you know, I did. I heard a chirping noise and then jumped up! 14 fertile eggs hatched, 1 didn’t survive. I like them best at the chick stage because they’re so cute and not yet stinky!
Saturday, October 16th, 2021
Sometimes just as much of a block I hit where nothing goes right, within the span of a week everything gets done. Once the fence was done, I had called the paver people and let them know, and he said he’d have it done soon. I thought soon meant in two weeks to a month—apparently not! He texted me yesterday (as members of the dojo were up for promotion) and said he’ll start… today!
I’m just a little fish
Swimming towards the big blue sea
Sometimes I might be lost or stuck in the river of life
But if I keep swimming along
Sooner or later I’ll get through
(My childhood nickname in Chinese is Little Fish for good reason.)
They started early and will likely be back tomorrow to finish up (they left their bobcat here and I did joke about taking it for a joyride just kidding don’t do that.)
The quail chicks all hatched and were finally moved into the lobby—just in time too because I can’t stand their middle of the night shrieking because they stepped in their water or whatever.
Monday, October 18th, 2021
And it’s done! I almost wept with happiness that everything managed to finish and beautifully too! I got the rest of the trees in the ground meanwhile finding garbage and a giant sheet of glass I spent forever picking out of the soil. I’ve moved the raised beds to their final location and began filling them up with soil. I also put a hole in the middle of each to be my compost area so I can directly compost in the garden beds!
I’m sick of lugging the hose and buckets of water around—I had thought we’d have a wet Autumn but we’ve actually had a pretty dry one so I was finally fed up enough to get a hose splitter and I’m going to daisy chain some soaker hoses. (Update: Soaker hose installation was completed on Saturday, October 23rd! Ow. My back.)
I can’t wait to see what happens in the spring!
This completes the back lot journey for this year, thanks for reading!
A few weeks ago I made a jar of natto and ended up forgetting about it for a couple weeks, and its pungency crossed over into douchi territory (which can be quite stinky indeed.) I ended up mixing it with seasonings (blended garlic, ginger, peppers, …
Traditionally, pork and century egg congee (Chinese rice porridge, also called “zhou/粥”) is made with pork chop and not pork belly, but it is 100000% better with pork belly (as many things often are). This porridge is normally served at breakfast or dim sum, and …
My mom gave me a yogurt maker and while I don’t particularly like or eat much yogurt, I do like and eat a lot of natto. Slippery, slimy, and pungent, it’s one of my (and my children’s) favorite things to pour over a bowl of steaming hot rice. I kept endeavoring to make it myself, but for some reason it always didn’t turn out right—either the texture or the flavor would be wrong, too… undercooked? And not enough flavor or strings.
Ultimately I found out that the recipes I were following online that were making them overnight did not actually ferment them enough. I still don’t know how they are making theirs and at this point I’ve all but given up on perfect overnight natto.
However, if you have some time and some jars, natto in the yogurt maker where the initial fermentation is done and then finished over a week in the fridge works too. I was inspired by a Japanese movie where they rolled it in straw mats and actually buried them in the snow during winter and came back a few weeks later to perfect natto, so turns out you can ferment them in cold temperatures too.
I ended up leaving a jar in the fridge for too long (about 5 weeks) and now the flavor is like douchi so I’m in the process of drying them for traditional dried douchi. It’s one of my dad’s favorite things that reminds him of his hometown in Szechuan (where everyone has a cave where they ferment their own) so I’ll have a recipe for that coming in a few days!
Cleanliness is important so you don’t spoil it with other types of bacteria so make sure all your utensils are sterilized before use.
If you’re looking for ways to use natto, you can check out my posts on Natto with Shiso and Natto Mochi for inspiration.
A few things made making this pita bread easy and delicious, namely the closet that holds my hot water heater and my cast iron pan. Quite honestly I was always intimidated by cast iron because I heard how it requires so much upkeep. That, I …
Drunken chicken (zui ji/醉鸡) is a popular Chinese cold dish that usually whets the appetite before the main course comes on—tender poached chicken is marinated in Shaoxing wine, delicious and juicy and oh so easy to eat a lot of (or too much of) before …
I don’t often get to eat Halal cart food, but when I do I usually ask them to just absolutely drench it in white sauce—which is weird because I generally don’t like mayonnaise based sauces. However, they always leave me wanting more. Just a little more I think to myself so I decided that I was going to endeavor to make my own, and it was going to flavor punch me in the face or else I would deem it a failure.
I don’t know if fortunately, or unfortunately, I actually did manage to achieve the flavor profile I was looking for, because now I have been eating it with EVERYTHING. French fries, pita, chicken, rice, all types of grilled meats, salad, IS THERE NO END TO THIS MADNESS. My husband has been secretly spooning it into his mouth while I’m not looking, so the entire jar I made has since disappeared.
Anyway, writing this down so in the event I leave this mortal realm, at least he can make it for himself. I refused to use dried herbs for this even though I guess you can, but it would not be as obnoxiously delicious in my opinion and the garlic would definitely not shine as it does here.
Do it in a jar—so much easier to just mix, (lick the spoon), and store. If you find the garlic flavor too strong (making a fresh garlic paste really brings out the flavor compounds and can make it a bit spicy), rest it in the fridge for a few hours, or overnight if you have that kind of self control.
Ah, my latest obsession–Brazilian Cheese Bread. I actually had this for the first time at a Brazilian steak-house in my adulthood, and enjoyed the pillowy, cheesy delights which I unfortunately tried very hard not to fill up on. It’s very much a if-bread-and-mochi-had-a-baby type texture …