So...

Since this last post, our entire kitchen has been completely gutted and renovated. It's much, much better in every respect, without reservations. But the question is, does having a nicer kitchen help you make better food?

Yes and no.

Does it make our food better? Not really. Yeah, the oven gets hotter faster, and yeah, there's a ton more prep space which makes things easier to organize, but no, the food itself isn't all that different. But because the kitchen is much, much better organized, it's easier to find stuff, so we end up finding random things and getting inspired to cook them. Because the prep space is so much larger, it's easier to manage multiple items. Tonight, for instance, we made a whole lot of Korean dishes without any space problems at all.

In the end, I think we cook more because the kitchen is a more pleasant place to be, it's easier, because of the space and organization, it's better lit, and just a lot more casual. Good stuff.

In the linked post, it discusses our new "buddy" system, where I help Ei-Nyung learn how to cook Korean food, and she helps me with some indie game development stuff. This means we'll be doing a lot more Korean cooking - I'm pretty psyched, cause there's some stuff that I'd really like to learn to do well.

Sahn Maru makes a great ginger/cinnamon drink which I tried replicating from a cookbook recipe tonight. It got most of the right flavors, but holy moly the balance of it all was bonkers. Sahn Maru clearly uses less ginger (or steeps it for a shorter time), more cinnamon, and MUCH MUCH MUCH less sugar. I used only half what the recipe called for and it was still much too much. Between the intensely powerful ginger and excess sugar, the drink was pretty... hardcore. Watered down, it's mostly right, but then loses the cinnamon hum that it should have.

Well, it's not like I can't try again.

Also made some Philadelphia-style vanilla ice cream from The Perfect Scoop, a book the Team gave me for my birthday. I'd made the French-style vanilla when I borrowed the book from them a while back, and it was awesome. The Philly-style may be even better, simply because the French-style custard is exceedingly rich. Well, I like the French version, too - I guess they each have their uses. Just different. But the Philly-style was definitely right for tonight, 'cause it's getting warmer, and the ice cream feels lighter (it's not *actually* lighter, I think - it's just a textural issue).

Yeah. Sorry this post is getting a bit scatterbrained. Lessee - anything else we've made recently that was good? Hmmm. Nothing comes to mind - but more Korean food in our future! woot.