I bought a bag of MSG from Amazon after watching a social media video that reminded me of this secret ingredient. In Japan, it’s known to trigger our “fifth sense,” aka umami, and is referred to as the “essence of deliciousness.” The video showed a man adding it to a jar of chopped cucumber rounds, cilantro, fish sauce, and garlic—all of which made my mouth water just thinking about the mixture.
I’ve been on the fence about this salt-adjacent product. It’s got a bad rap from back in the day, but since multiple double-blind research studies have concluded it’s safe, I decided to go for it and put it in the chicken broth I made from scratch.
After sipping two cups of the broth, though, I felt weird: lightheaded, a tense heat in my neck, and a slight headache. A Google search told me that about 1% of the population has a reaction like mine to it, but it typically goes away by drinking water.
Which I did—and it did.
Ever since starting the book Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, I’ve been mixing dough, fermenting it with yeast, and baking all kinds of stuff. Today, it was mozzarella-filled breadsticks, and with the currently rising dough in the kitchen, who knows what tomorrow will bring? Maybe a big ciabatta-like bread with fresh rosemary. Oh, and I’ll include the toasted garlic I baked earlier. I have yet to bake bread in my Dutch oven, so I’m excited to try that out.
The simple way the author conveys directions makes it almost too easy not to try. Considering I’m not even 10% finished with the book and already have two doughs under my belt, I can’t help but wonder what the next 90% will bring.
With Dave at his AA meeting and Evelyn asleep in bed, Archie is currently curled up by my feet. If you saw the loose, poorly toilet-paper-wrapped job on my pointer finger, you’d probably wonder if it were a veil and if she’d married the thumb next to her. I’d tell you no—I just singed it really bad pulling a rack of cookies out two days ago. It’s since bubbled up, popped, and bubbled again. After keeping it under a Band-Aid with Aquaphor in hopes it won’t scar too badly, I decided to let it air dry. But knowing bedtime is soon, and since I’m too lazy to walk 30 feet to the guest bathroom, I’ve reapplied the balm and mummified it to keep it from getting all over the sheets.
That’s up to the minute. I hope your Monday was a dandy one.
Love,
Jaclynn
Going On 40 