I wasn’t able to attend class on Tuesday because I was ill, but I heard that the class visited the UCLA planetarium which has telescopes and a large star projector. I did not know that a planetarium existed on campus, so I was disappointed that I had to miss it. However, I made more progress on my kombucha fermentation. I wrapped up the second fermentation of my batch from last week, a strawberry black tea kombucha. I was surprised when I first opened the bottle after 7 days, the carbonation fizzed up and overflowed out of the bottle. I read online that you didn’t need to burp the kombucha, but I might burp it next time so that this doesn’t happen again. The kombucha tasted delicious– sweet, slightly tart, and very strawberry-y. The chunks of fruit were also fizzy and added a nice textural element to the drink. However, on the eighth and ninth day, I noticed something strange. After drinking the kombucha, I felt like I was a bit buzzed as if I drank alcohol. I know that kombucha has trace amounts of alcohol, but I didn’t think it had enough to affect someone. I think the 8th and 9th day of kombucha fermented a bit more alcohol than normal. I am an extreme lightweight so I think it got to me, I felt a little crazy before I did some research on the alcohol fermentation!

This weekend, Charles and I had our Snake and Dragon Dinner. We went to the Korean market and got various ingredients that correlated with our respective zodiacs. I worked with egg yolks, barley, buckwheat, and cider for the snake. Charles worked with peanuts, tofu, lean protein, avocado, and milky desserts. We ended up with a dinner consisting of Korean egg rolls (gyeran-mari), buckwheat noodles with soy sauce broth, barley rice, peanut tofu, cucumber corn salad, shaken beef with SouthEast Asian inspired sauce, pandan white chocolate cookies, avocado whipped cream, and Korean strawberry cider. We also meticulously designed the table setting with green moss displayed between a rounded glass surface and a rectangular wooden table. We decorated the table with candlesticks, orchids which are the flower of the snake, hyacinths which are the flower of the dragon, and red carnations. The dinner was delicious and we shared stories about the foods that we were eating and our personal cultural relationships to it.

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