The hairy crabs were a gift from someone, some kind of gift voucher I think — you book through WeChat and then just go pick them up. I’d never actually cooked hairy crabs before. My wife knows how to eat them, though, so I decided to give it a go myself under her advice.

I wanted meat skewers, but they’re too expensive outside, so I ended up making them myself.

Something you make for someone sick: steamed egg custard. Looks easy, but getting it perfectly smooth and pretty is actually kind of hard.

I’ve been eating fried eggs for breakfast so often lately that I’m getting sick of them, so I decided to add some stuff.

Crucian carp and tofu soup is a pretty simple and quite nutritious… dish? Or soup? Whatever you call it, it goes down well with rice. The method isn’t complicated either, and the ingredient list is short: Crucian carp (the small kind is fine, don’t get a big one; one small or two small depending on how many people are eating) Tofu (however much you want, usually one small block is enough) Cilantro (a small bunch) White pepper Salt Scallion (one stalk) Oil Ginger

The chef I admire most, Kiritani Hana, once said: “Good food is improved through constant practice.” So every time I cook, I try to make it a little better than last time, and add a bit of my own recipe while I’m at it. Soy sauce fried rice is already pretty good, I think. But recently I got my hands on a bottle of “salted duck egg yolk mayo” — hardcore stuff — and I figured I’d throw it into the fried rice. Tried it today and it went great. Here’s the rundown.

I’ve been cooking every day lately, breakfast especially. Breakfast has to taste good, and it has to be fast and convenient. Best of all if nothing goes to waste — this time the house was sitting on way too much mantou, so I stir-fried it.

Soy sauce fried rice is a dead simple dish, but it tastes way better than it has any right to. The stuff you’re frying is basically just rice — day-old rice is best — and then whatever else you feel like throwing in. Boiled corn, lettuce, shiitake, shrimp, bacon, whatever you’ve got, just dump it in. The soy sauce is the point.

Met up with Canadian dalao Siyan Zhang yesterday. Since we’re from the same hometown, I treated him to a meal.

My workplace recently started cracking down on attendance, so I can’t show up a few minutes late whenever I feel like it anymore. That means I don’t dare go home at lunch either — I have to eat at work. I used to eat in the cafeteria, but my meal card doesn’t cover enough, and the cafeteria is both expensive and not very good, so I switched to takeout. At first I ordered from 鸡尿外卖; then I realized the discounts only applied to the first few orders, and after that it just kept getting pricier. A few orders in, I noticed it wasn’t just expensive — the taste was mediocre too. Then I was playing an eroge and saw a scene where the heroine makes bento for the protagonist, and it hit me: “Shit, why don’t I just make my own bento and eat that?”