What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking?

I've recently started getting into making my own ramen bowls, which I've never done before. I'm not pretending to do it in any kind of authentic way so I've been playing around with various methods--in one pot on the stove, using my Instant Pot, cooking ingredients all together or separately, using different kinds of noodles, doing it with chicken, pork, or vegan versions.

My SO after I told her about it thoughtfully bought me a set of ramen bowls with chopsticks and renge, which I didn't have and made eating it more enjoyable. My first few attempts were acceptable but not awesome, but they're pretty good now. A true ramen connoisseur would probably scoff at it, but would still finish eating it.

It’s finally warm enough in my part of the Midwest to brave an evening at the grill, so we made a modified version of Brian Lagerstrom’s chicken souvlaki. We opted for store-bought pita; his recipe pita is good but I couldn’t be bothered to dirty more dishes in the process.

It’s a delicious and stupid-easy recipe. I modified the “relish” to feel more like a proper side dish, dressing it up with cucumbers and a simple lemon/EVOO vinaigrette.

Brian’s one of the few YouTube food content creators whose recipes I will actively try, given his really consistent flavor/quality to effort ratio. Like all creators shackled to the algorithm, he sometimes hyperbolizes in his titles or claims, but his approach is nowhere near as egregious as, say, Joshua Weissman if you’re familiar with his videos as well.

I got excited when one of our local farms started selling sunchokes at the local farmers market. They look like ginger and supposedly eat like potatoes, sign me up! So I get all excited and look up recipes and find one for a sunchoke pasta from NYTimes. A little shallot, garlic, oil, and thyme/rosemary have the kitchen smelling amazing. I slice the sunchokes about 1/4 inch thick and add them to the mix and pan fry until they are nice and crisp on the outside. When I go to plate it, it's a little awkward due to size of the rounds (and make a mental note to cut them into smaller pieces next time) but otherwise excellent. My partner is stoked, I revel in my success, and we head to pottery class.

Then the gas builds. And I mean builds. I don't think I've ever farted so much in my entire life. I thought about going home. If I walked I would literally fart with every step. I almost left ceramics early because I was farting so much at the throwing wheel. We farted all night! Not stinky mind you, just tremendous! I guess there is a weird kind of soluble fiber that we can't digest that causes bloating and gas. What I didn't know is that you should start by eating a little and work your way up. We started with a pound of sunchoke! In the future I can also soak them in vinegar or in water overnight to extract/breakdown some of the issue causing fiber.

All in all delicious, but I understand why folks approach with caution!