i tried my countertop jiu niang this morning, it's starting to turn sweeter. so that sourness was just an initial byproduct. it still doesn't have any of that characteristic jiu niang alcohol smell, but maybe that's a good thing, as the bacteria is still focused on turning the starch into sugar. my hope is that every day it will get a bit sweeter. in the small jar i noticed some fine white fuzz, but i read that's actually the fruiting body of the good bacteria, and it's perfectly safe.

my mother called me this morning, said there was something wrong with the cafe website, that they couldn't read the phone number changes i made yesterday. seems like this was only happening with iOS, both on iphones and ipads, but not on laptops or androids. i thought maybe it was a css parsing error, until i had my sister send me a screenshot. when i saw it i had an idea what the problem was: iOS automatically turns phone numbers into clickable links. the trick to fixing it was to make some css edits.

i made another bowl of jiu niang soup for lunch. i still have enough v1 jiu niang to make one more serving for tomorrow. i only used as much water to barely cover the frozen glutinous rice balls to boil them. once they floated i added a bit of sugar, several scoops of jiu niang, and an egg. it'd definitely taste better if i had some better quality jiu niang, but i can only work with what i have. when i opened the jar i was overpowered by the aroma of trapped alcohol. v1 jiu niang is also getting sweeter, but it's also getting more carbonated.

in the afternoon i walked to star market to stock up on some snacks. when i came back i finished a container of guacamole with some leftover stale corn chip crumbs. i also ate the final piece of fried chicken with a yogurt drink while watching ava on netflix. i'm a big jessica chastain fan and the film was shot in boston, but the movie is a big piece of garbage. it couldn't make up its mind as to whether it wanted to be a female verison of jason bourne or a drama about a dysfunctional family featuring a manipulative mother and a bipolar sister. throw in alcoholism, and random cameos from famous actors, and it seems like a movie with too many parts that never gelled.

my replacement instant pot condensation cups arrived today. it's weird that both bin bin's instant pot and my parents' 8qt instant pot don't have them. makes me wonder if it's an optional accessory not included in the box, or maybe it seems so innocuous it was just accidentally tossed out. to be honest, there hasn't been a lot of water dripping to really warrant condensation collectors, but it's nice to know i have them now so i don't end up with a spill on my table.

now that i have an instant pot (borrowed), i can start making all those delicious instant pot recipes i always come across but couldn't make because i didn't have a pressure cooker. japanese cheese cake! century egg & pork rice porridge! indian butter chicken! various heart soups! i like the instant pot because it uses science (pressurized cooking) to create a shortcut to cooking faster. for dinner i reheated a bowl of leftover risotto from yesterday. but there was a lot of liquids, it reheated a bit better (not a dried clumpy mess) but leftover risotto never tastes as good as fresh.