Congratulations

 Congratulations on your big brother's getting married, Natty!  What a lovely couple.  Best wishes and applause.  Being married is a great way to get the gay guys off his back, especially if he's active in showbiz.

Hey Natty, this miso stuff is quite useful.  Soups have a creamy texture, like cream of chicken soup.  I had half a fish head left, so I steamed it in miso soup for lunch.  Soybeans also have the reputation of enhancing meats.  So for dinner I had steak cooked in miso, with fries.  It was a success.  I used the anchovy miso which is salty, but if I had used a sweet miso it would be better I think.

Adventures in miso

 Hi Natty!  How are you today?  I pray you are healthy and happy.  Again, I'm sorry about all this waiting around.  I prayed as sincerely as I could for your life to be an easy one, without the worries of money or a place to live.  I have a feeling though that when the time comes for us to be married inshaAllah, I will approach you as gently as possible as you doze in blissful slumber, then you wake with a shock and stick your claws in me.  Yeah I know, I use a lot of cat metaphors.  But which would you prefer, a gentle prodding or a rude awakening?  Either way when the time comes inshaAllah, please make it easy for me otherwise I will feel and think that you are not interested in marrying me.  This international and long distance love is not easy for either of us, so please make the process of marriage easy for your husband.

Damn, these soybeans just won't break even though I cooked them for a day!  Unless I stick my hands in there and mangle them.  Which is what I did, when it cooled down of course.  Then the skins were in the way.  I tried Google to tell me how to separate the beans from the skins, and it got cryptic on me.  The only clue I got was that I had to buy a machine to do the separation.  Damned shadow marketing.  So I threw the lot, skins and all, into a jar with salt and water, and left it on my counter to ferment.  I put some aside in the blender, and made a mulch, which is basically miso, without the fungus.  But fungus is in the air, right?  It'll get into the mix eventually, especially in this tropical climate.  So I made 2 types of miso: one with just salt, and the other with all the leftover anchovies I had in my cooler.  I used the anchovy miso in my ramen, and it was a success.  There was anchovy debris at the bottom of my soup because I used fried anchovies, but next time I won't.

Just another average day

 Hi Natty!  How are you today, my love?  I saw that post by your USC grad school buddy, but I didn't see you, or maybe you were wearing a mask or something.  I can't say that I find your situation to be normal, though everybody is happy and smiling.  So please be vigilant about protecting your health and safety.

It is a normal day over here.  Sundays I clean my mother's bedroom , and I get takeout rice for lunch since I don't have energy to cook.  I had to take my mother to the hairdresser in the evening.  It's a good thing I had some soybeans stewing off and on all day.  They haven't broken up yet, but they're edible.  So I'll be making dinner after I pray the sunset prayer, which is steak and soybeans in gravy.  Very healthy!  Oops, gotta go!  Time to pray!

The humble but mighty soybean

 

Hi Natty!  How are you today, my darling?  I hope you are being vigilant about guarding your health and safety during these pandemic times.  I've been suffering eye strain lately.  I love computer work, but my eyes can't seem to keep up with the workload.  But I discovered recently that if I were to take a nap after I post this letter everyday (usually after the sunset prayer), I can work the rest of the night without my eyes having any trouble, or needing any of that eye ointment.  It seems to be working for me, I don't know if would help anyone else, especially those who stay glued to the monitor without eating, sleeping, taking a shower or a dump.  You have to take breaks, and give your computer a break too.

I'm not good with soybeans.  My last attempts at making tofu and soy sauce were miserable failures.  But I'm determined to master the soybean somehow, someway.  Soybeans are almost as cheap as lentils here, so I went ahead and bought a kilo.  Soybeans, being beans, are time consuming.  First you have to soak them, only then can you cook them.  And being beans, you have to slow cook them to death like chili.  I didn't do that today, I just cooked them until they lost their snap, making them slightly easier to eat.  I ate them with some of that slow cooked steak I made the other day, some dried onions and salt.  The rest of the beans that I cooked, I salted them and put them in jars to ferment a little.  This is going to take a while.  I'm not good with soybeans, but I'm determined to get better.

Friday

 Hi Natty!  How's life in sunny California?  I hope you are keeping healthy and safe.  Not much going on here for me, other than the usual.  It's past sunset right now, and I'm still eating my dinner.  Curry pups.  I was going to cut the grass over at my grandparents' grave, but the sky was so dark I gave that up.  It rained only a little, though.  Nothing special on the menu today either.  Just curry pups.  I'm going to finish my dinner now.  I love you!

In lieu of greens

 Hi Natty!  How are you today, my love?  I pray that all is well with you, that you are healthy and having a wonderful time.  Oh!  I'm a bit tired right now.  I had to cut the grass by the side of the road this evening.  I had between 4:45 and 7 pm to clean my mother's kitchen, take out the trash, cut the grass, cook and eat my dinner, and shower.  I managed to get all of that done with 6 minutes to spare before they called the sunset prayer.  Good thing dinner was steak and egg tacos.  If I had cooked rice, I would still have been eating when they called the prayer.  It's pretty simple.  I had the mini dough balls ready for the soft tacos, I just had to shape and stretch them out to cook on a hot plate.  The steak was already cooked, I just had to slice it up, heat it up in some grease, then crack a couple of eggs on top of it and sprinkle some salt and pepper.  I didn't have any lettuce, though.  The options growing in my yard were mint, basil, green hot peppers and young cashew leaves.  Perhaps the mint would have tasted good, but I went with the young cashew leaves.  It tasted OK.  I'm full, alhamdulillah.  Want some?

Practice, practice, practice

 Hi Natty!  How's it going?  I hope you are keeping healthy and safe.  How's your cooking coming along?  Oh, don't be discouraged, my love.  Everybody fails, what matters is that you practice, practice, practice.  Eventually inshaAllah, you will be feeding your family, and the most annoying feeling in the world is having your family refuse to eat your cooking.  Start with the things you like to eat, and perfect them.  Please your stomach first, then please your taste buds.  Just don't give up OK?

Everything is curry for me today.  I bought a whole lot of curry yesterday to steam my fish head, then to slow cook a kilo of cheap cut beef.  Which left me a lot of curry left over, so I had curry noodles for lunch.  I also made lentil fritters which has curry spices in it (I'm becoming hooked on the stuff.  It's best when hot, but it's still a great snack to nibble on 8 hours later while I'm doing wardrobe with Mary Unknown7), plus curry pups for dinner.  I used steak instead of ground beef for the curry pups and boy, they are heavenly.  Yeah I do get tired of curry, but not yet.  Maybe tomorrow.  It's not as if everything is seasoned up to 11 with curry, sometimes the effect is very mild.

My theory of curry is curry spices seasoning a fond (sauce) then expanded with a fatty milky broth.  Some people argue that you need a different curry blend for fish over meat, but I don't see it that way.  I just use my favorite curry powder for all my curry recipes.  What makes the difference is the quality of fish or meat that you use.  For example, the cheap beef I bought was buffalo meat from India.  It produced a great steak, but the curry left over had a distinct aftertaste.  It tasted like... India.  I've never been to India, and I don't have the desire to go there either.  All I need for my India fix is a good curry.