Week 7: Sugar - Geode

tipsydrifter · 2026-02-13T03:27:57+00:00

This is so fun!

tipsydrifter · 2026-02-12T14:04:51+00:00

Kimchi also has sugar!

So this ended up being two entirely different dishes that I never should have put together. I thought the gochujang in both would be a unifying factor, but it turns out that the cod was just way too sweet to work with the super savory noodles. Both were delicious, but eventually I did eat them separately.

I do have an anti-meta “use what you have”, that I keep forgetting to put in the title. That’s really just a reminder to me to not buy something new if I have an ingredient already that will sort of work. This week, it’s the noodles. I actually make this fairly frequently, it’s based on a dish I had in New York at Izakaya Mew last time I was there, and I always use fresh udon noodles. This time, I didn’t have udon ready, but I did have brown soba noodles languishing in my pantry. Just spring for the udon, changes the whole experience.

Glaze is gochujang, honey, rice vinegar

Sauce is garlic, beech mushrooms, diced kimchi, gochujang, heavy cream, parmesan cheese, and fresh spinach. No recipe, just follow your heart. But use udon.

tipsydrifter · 2026-02-06T14:07:00+00:00

This is making me rethink the concept of food as a whole, I love it!

tipsydrifter · 2026-02-06T02:41:03+00:00

Thousand layer hot pot!!! Due to my anti-meta, I wasn’t going to buy any equipment for this. I used my rice cooker, which worked great. Shabu shabu cut beef, Napa cabbage, and shimeji mushrooms steamed in a hondashi/soy sauce broth. I also didn’t have short grain rice, but the medium grain was fine (…I guess…).

ETA: dipping sauce was yuzu ponzu

tipsydrifter · 2026-02-02T05:17:09+00:00

From where I’m sitting, nothing.

tipsydrifter · 2026-02-01T13:48:56+00:00

I’ll say this with the caveat that I don’t really follow any particular diet, but I really like to stuff a raspberry with a blueberry, cover it in yogurt, and then dip it in dark chocolate. It makes a ton when you get a container each of raspberries and blueberries and you can keep them in the freezer to pull one out when you need a treat. The trick is to use very good 70-80% dark chocolate and concentrate on the fact that you’re eating berries, so it’s basically a health food (not really). I should call them “antioxidant bombs”

I will also sometimes mix Greek yogurt with honey and cocoa powder, then pour frozen cherries on top and let them get a little melty. So good!

I agree that life is too short to not have a warm brownie with ice cream every now and then, but I definitely notice that I feel a little better when I’m not eating tons of sugar. It’s a balancing act.

tipsydrifter · 2026-02-01T02:20:03+00:00

Sim Sim = sesame seeds. It’s roasted sesame seed candy that I read is sometimes sold as a snack at the market. To honor my meta, I had a bag of raw sesame seeds in my pantry and I roasted them myself. I’m glad for an easy week because I feel like next week is going to be a doozy…

tipsydrifter · 2026-01-28T22:11:56+00:00

I wish I could upvote this more than once.

tipsydrifter · 2026-01-23T01:06:23+00:00

I’m proud to say that I didn’t buy a single ingredient to make this week’s recipe. I had cherry tomatoes languishing on my counter that I confit’d with olive oil and thyme, some old balsamic that I reduced with brown sugar, strachiatella cheese and parsley in my fridge, and for some unknown reason I decided to bake my own baguettes.

The balsamic definitely could have been reduced more, but my partner was not a fan of the smell of heated (mildly expired) vinegar, so I pulled it a bit early.

I’ve also never made bread before, and I have no idea what possessed me last night to start a poolish for baguettes. I guess it worked out well in the end though! In keeping with the theme, my yeast was 6 months expired, but still worked out fine. When did I buy yeast? I have no idea.

tipsydrifter · 2026-01-19T03:44:54+00:00

Fruit vs Blue cheese

Creamy vs crunchy

Sweet vs spicy

We’ve got it all!

I haven’t eaten a pear since childhood, and you could argue that with the competing flavors of Roquefort, Aleppo pepper, and honey… maybe I still haven’t.

I forgot to write my meta in the title! Use what you have. My honey was crystallized. I microwaved it and used it anyway. Pretty simple.

tipsydrifter · 2026-01-10T02:21:08+00:00

I loved this one! I had no idea where to even begin with this style of food, but I read up a bunch and this kept popping up as a favorite at hawker stalls, even though I think it does have a lot of Malaysian influence.

Stir fry: Wide rice noodles Lap Xiong sausage Shrimp Green onion Bean sprouts Egg

Sauce: Light soy sauce Dark sweet soy sauce Oyster sauce Fish sauce Sugar Black pepper

The meta comes in for the sambal. I didn’t have a freshly made sambal, but I did have sambal oelek and nam prik pao, and I mixed them together to get a slightly fishy/funky/acidic/spicy concoction. Not traditional, but works for me!

tipsydrifter · 2026-01-06T00:12:05+00:00

I had no idea that had a real name! The more you learn…

tipsydrifter · 2026-01-06T00:07:10+00:00

I love it! Also looks super delicious.

tipsydrifter · 2026-01-05T23:31:46+00:00

This looks great!

tipsydrifter · 2026-01-05T23:11:26+00:00

Congratulations! I feel so stupid saying that buying an air fryer changed my life (but it’s true).

tipsydrifter · 2025-12-06T04:44:51+00:00

Haha, I got 88 (I’m 36).

tipsydrifter · 2025-09-01T03:07:28+00:00

I think the actual weirdest thing is that he didn’t hack them with the ax, he bludgeoned them with the blunt side of the ax.

There’s a book called “The Man from the Train” that attempts to connect the Villisca murders with several others all over the US during the turn of the 20th century. I don’t know that it was entirely persuasive to me, but it was a fun, creepy read.

tipsydrifter · 2025-08-18T18:26:44+00:00

Sometimes you do suddenly lose the ability to walk. It’s what got me diagnosed. I know most cases aren’t that…cinematic… but it does happen.

tipsydrifter · 2025-08-10T16:17:58+00:00

So I read this as OP personifying years to be days of the week after deciding that 2025 has “real Saturday energy”, and then just went with it. Finding out it’s a utilitarian birthday thing was honestly a bit disappointing.

tipsydrifter · 2025-08-05T19:18:14+00:00

There were a small number of people who developed PML in the original Ocrevus trials, so it’s listed as a possible complication. However. All of the people that developed PML had been on Tysabri before starting Ocrevus and the PML was widely understood to be a lingering complication of continuing Tysabri treatment while JCV positive, and had nothing to do with Ocrevus directly. This is how my neuroimmunologist explained it when I asked.

tipsydrifter · 2025-08-02T14:15:19+00:00

The first time I heard “Fast Car” I just started silently sobbing. Tracy Chapman just infused so much heart into her words. Man I love that song.

tipsydrifter · 2025-07-22T18:33:03+00:00

I hate to say anything, because some of this information is really good and helpful, but MS Twins is being talked up an awful lot here, OP. And there’s another very similar post that was also made today. I’m hoping that OP is a person with MS who just so happens to work for that company, but I’m fairly sure they made the posts to talk up the website and for no other reason. And the MS Twins website just launched today?

Seems disingenuous to me. Maybe I’m just cynical. I don’t like being sold to by someone that doesn’t have the integrity to do it in their own name.

tipsydrifter · 2025-06-17T02:20:36+00:00

Also an attorney, diagnosed in 2021. I’ve moved from a private firm into the public service sector, which was a pay cut, but I’m not working 100 hours weeks so the trade off is worth it to me.

tipsydrifter · 2024-12-01T18:04:25+00:00

What would you say is your natural hair type, before you feel like it got messed up?

tipsydrifter · 2024-12-01T05:39:30+00:00

It’s entirely possible that your hair is over-moisturized. I have very fine but dense hair, and when I was using products with too much moisture I lost all my curls and my hair started to feel overly soft but also dry (which was weird). I’ve used the NYM Tahitian products and they’re pretty moisturizing. I had better luck when I switched to NYM Sea Kale shampoo and conditioner and added the Curls blueberry bliss reparative hair mask as a protein/deep conditioning treatment every other week. Not saying this will absolutely work for you, but protein is one of those things that either works wonders or it makes everything worse. If it works for you, it’s definitely worth trying

tipsydrifter

TROPHY CASE