this morning i started making the jiu niang with the instant pot after soaking 2 cups of sweet rice overnight. i drained the rice using a fine mesh strainer then dumped the rice back into the instant pot inner pot and added 2 cups of water. i let hit the preset rice button and waited for sweet rice to cook. i did see how it long it took to cook, but i'm guessing around 25 minutes (13 minutes to come to pressure, 12 minutes of actual cooking). i released the stem and took out the pot.

the sweet rice had a weird smell from the instant pot; i think it's just leftover grease in the nooks and crannies that evaporated during cooking. the rice was too hot (140°F) and i needed to cool it down to around 98°F before i can add the yeast ball. so i soaked the entire pot in a large bowl of cold water while i stirred the sweet rice to help it cool faster. while i waited for the rice to cool, i prepared the yeast ball.

the recipe only called for half a yeast ball but i used a whole yeast ball instead because i had so many. i figured the more jiu niang yeast, the faster everything will ferment. i got a little piece of tin foil and slowly crushed the yeast ball with a meat tenderizer mallet. i didn't just want to just smash it, since bits of yeast would then spray everywhere. times like this it'd be helpful to have a mortar and pestle, but after a few passes pulverizing the ball with the hammer, it was crumbled enough. to that i added 1-1/4 cups of lukewarm boiled water (98°F).

when the sweet finally cooled down enough, i poured the yeast + water mixture into the rice and mixed everything together. the rice was sticky before, but now with the addition of the water, it was now sloppy. they always make a well in the center of the rice to gauge how much fermented liquids have been produced, but the rice was so runny that i couldn't make a hole that wouldn't just fill back it. finally after multiple tries i made it work. i put the pot (with the rice) back into the pressure cooker and this time set it at yogurt low temperature with a timer of 30 hours. now i just sit back and wait until saturday night for my jiu niang to be finished.

no mood for oatmeal, i made some hot and spicy indomie mi goreng for lunch. before i did i watched a few youtube videos to learning how to properly poach an egg. when i did it last time it was in boiling water so the egg turned to be a mess. this time around, i boiled the water and took it off the burner, a more gentle cook. i also added some vinegar, which supposedly helps to solidify the egg whites. i used the swirl technique and drop the raw egg into the pot from a bowl. the egg came out okay, but next time i should use my water because i think it wasn't hot enough to cook the egg all the way through (i like my eggs firm). the hot and spicy was okay, just enough spiciness to not be overbearing.

in the afternoon i went to the cafe to set up the eufy 2K indoor camera. comparing the footage between the old wyze cam v2 and the ne eufy, the eufy is definitely the better quality with the higher 2K resolution. the eufy is also slightly wider, 125° verus wyze's 120°. the only thing i don't like is i've invested so much in the wyze ecosystem (i currently have 10 wyze cameras monitoring various locations), adding the eufy means i have to the eufy app to see the videos. i tried tinycam to consolidate the two brands, but the eufy cameras don't seem to play nice with tinycam. maybe this can be fixed in the future, but in the meantime i need to toggle between two apps in order to see our web cams. i don't think i'm making a full switch to eufy anytime soon. besides, wyze just recently introduced the v3 camera (1080p, 130° FOV, no free person detection), which may be better in terms of image quality, but they won't be out until december.

i also made some updates on the menu signs, got rid of one items, changed the prices on 3 specials, and added "gluten free" and "vegan" labels for customers with dietary restrictions. i returned home a little after 4pm, updated the website menus as well.

in the evening i made korean rice cakes for dinner (based on this recipe i made back in july). i had a small amount of frozen rice cakes in the freezer, and i also had a package of tofu wedges in the fridge i needed to eat. so it turned out to be more tofu than rice cakes, but the final result was very hearty, that combination of starch plus protein plus korean hot sauce warmed me up the rest of the night. i made way too much hot sauce so i ended up saving it instead of tossing it out, if i get some rice cakes i can reuse the sauce, or maybe give it to my parents.

i ate while finishing watching tinker tailor soldier spy (2011) on netflix. the movie is a bit confusing and i can't keep straight the name of all the characters, but each time i watch i seem to understand it a little more, or catch something i didn't notice before.