September 2026
It’s been a busy food month, though not so much for what’s gone on at home. I spent the bulk of the last month on vacation exploring Istanbul for the first time, and making my umpteenth visits to Paris and London.
August 2026
It’s been another bit of a busy month, and it hasn’t been quite as conducive to my usual note taking as usual. Searching for some inspiration, I decided to have a run at a steamed eggplant recipe I hadn’t tried from my small cookbook library.
RecipeCavatelli
This is different to the usual fresh pasta people might think of. You don’t need a pasta machine or special equipment, it uses hard durum wheat instead of “normal” soft wheat flour, and it doesn’t require any eggs, so it’s incidentally vegan.
RecipeCá Hấp (Vietnamese-style Steamed Fish)
This is my North American adaptation of an Australian take on a traditional Vietnamese technique for doing steamed fish, cá hấp. It’s great, though I won’t even begin to pretend this is authentic, or that I know anything about the cultural context.
RecipeMochi
The procedure for doing the mochi itself is somewhat specific to the Tiger SMJ-B18U machine. The water and rice amounts, or the timings might work in other machines. From experience, however, each machine tends to require a bit of finesse to get right.