Wow, it has been a full evening. Why, you ask?? Because I have a job now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yesssss. I work at a bookstore in the South End as a cashier, ringing people up, answering (sometimes) silly questions, restocking and receiving books, and making good use of the unlimited loose tea/coffee/juice policy (mostly in the iced tea area). I have been in training since last Thursday, which means I am there from 8:30 to 1 learning how to scan returns and void things. It’s a fun job; it’s interesting to see all the people that come in and out of the store, the regulars, the tourists, the boho-ritzy Newbury St. clientele. I will be working full-time there starting this weekend, from 10-4, so now I have to actually PLAN my life out; who I need to email, future trips to NY, what to have for dinner next week, bookclub “meetings”. Oh! I’m also starting my internship with Alternatives for Community & Environment on Friday. I think I’m going to be working in the development/communications area. I’m not gonna lie, I don’t know exactly what that entails, but it should be interesting nonetheless.

So I got home from work around 4:15 today (had to make a side trip to H&M after work to find another pair of black pants–I have a uniform) and ate dinner. Dear God, pureed carrots are the closest thing to actual sugar that I have tasted in a week or two. So good!! I had those, some steamed chard, broccoli, and zucchini, and a quinoa and roasted zucchini & broccoli gratin. The gratin was good in the sense that anything you cook yourself is always going to be good…aka it could have been better; even though I let it bake for far longer than called for, it was still a bit too mushy on the inside for my liking. The recipe called for 2 eggs, but I should have used an egg and a yolk. Also, I should have added more seasoning to the recipe since it didn’t have much besides s&p, parsley and garlic.

After dinner I made vegetable stock, chopped up a ton of veggies to put in my salads, boiled eggs for lunches later in the week, and finished up my yogurt cheese. It sounds really nasty, but it’s actually really delicious and impossibly easy to make. You just put yogurt into a strainer lined with a dishtowel (or cheesecloth, if you have it) and let the whole thing drip into a bowl. The liquid that comes out is whey, which is full of all types of nutrients and can be added to lacto-fermented drinks (ginger beer, root beet), as well as pickled and cultured foods like sauerkraut and pickles and kimchee and miso. So now I have a jar of whey, which I’m going to use for pickling stuff later on. More importantly, I have a delicious “cheese” (really just super thick yogurt) which, I found out today, is fantastic drizzled with a bit of olive oil and sea salt. The taste varies, depending on what type of yogurt you use. I used lowfat Wallaby yogurt, only because it’s what was in the fridge. It tastes subtly tangy and smooth; basically the way the yogurt tastes but in an extremely concentrated form. It’s not strong or overpowering at all though. Apparently in the Middle East and South Asia, it’s popular to eat strained yogurt this way. It’s called labneh and is mixed into all types of dishes; one popular method is to add spices (mint, parsley, etc) form it into balls, and drizzle (or drown) it with olive oil.

This evening I also dealt with my brewing kombucha. I have been getting hives on the back of my legs, and I think the kombucha might have something to do with it, since it’s the only new thing I have been eating recently (I tried a few tablespoons over the weekend to see if it was ready). That never happens to me when I drink the commercial stuff (GT Daves), and I didn’t want to get anymore strange shit from mine, so I threw the first batch (including the donated culture) away. I’m going to start over with the culture that grew from that batch, and I’m going to keep it in my room, which is warmer and cleaner than where the jar was before. Hopefully this batch turns out fine. If not, I’m just going to buy a case of GTs and call it a day.