Just after we purchased the Prius, I achieved ~950 miles before refueling. I promised myself I would break 1000 and indeed I did this summer: 1050 miles on 8.1 gallons of gas. 

it’s rare that i feel satisfied by customer service, so when i called vitamix about our leaking pitcher and they agreed to send me a new one no questions asked, i was very happy. but then again, we paid a small fortune for this machine – the 7-year warranty better be good!

back in june, we didn’t know if we would get our anniversary date and we wanted to try her autumn cuisine so i quickly secured a september date when slots opened up on the sunday of the week i wanted.

i finally figured out how to get my photos in focus: wide focal length; f/4.0; shutter 1/30 sec.; WB at 2900K (which yields 2800K in LR); ISO from 2000-6000; not AF illuminator or audio signal; compose photo from a distance slightly above my head but avoiding lens shadow on food.

i remembered all of the sushi courses but i forgot to take a picture of the chilean sea bass soup with m’s new favorite: the yuzu dashi kombu broth.

our first japanese eggplant! bugs got into the end near the stem because the vegetable was buried in the wood chips, but the rest of it was perfect and tasty. i did a coarse chop that i learned from blue apron and sauteed it in EVOO for 3-5 minutes. then i mixed it with lots of other veggies and put all of them over tamaki gold rice. best. dinner. ever. (mostly because of the rice. even n/naka uses tamaki gold.)

when hrj invited us over for dinner, we stopped at 99 ranch for white peaches for cobbler and lots of other asian goodies. we found kansui and tonight we tried to make homemade ramen noodles with the KA pasta attachments.

i did it! i made homemade kombucha! we were out of sugar so i delayed the tasting and bottling. it is definitely fizzy. i could see a stream of bubbles originate from the mother scoby as i was ladling the liquid into bottles. it still tasted faintly of oolong (used organic oolong from intelligentsia) and had a bit of sweetness. i could add a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar to each bottle but i’m not sure it needs it. it starts like cider then tickles the back of the throat then finishes with caramel and nut. i love it. i should’ve tasted it on day 7 but i think a 2-week brewing cycle will be perfect. especially since i reserve 1.5 cups for my next batch, bottle the rest in the 7 bottles that i have, and have about 4 ounces leftover to savor while i’m bottling.

here’s my gallon of kombucha ready for bottling on day 12. notice the orange and brown floaty blobs? they are just byproducts of the yeast. next time, i’ll get my scoby to float on top so it grows larger.

here’s my pearly white baby scoby that was just a semi-transparent film a week ago. i put him in the compost. maybe i can convince someone to take the next one. oh, well. it’s just like sourdough starter – you can’t keep it all.

L to R: 1.5 cups of kombucha with scoby; 8oz of starter tea to feed the scoby until i clean the gallon jar; baby scoby in the bowl; 2 bottles; a bit to taste test; 4 bottles (i made the perfect amount!); plastic ladle; plastic strainer and plastic funnel for bottling ease

bubbles!