We had a bit of a busy day on our 4 year anniversary.  Alli helped our friend Jiazi to introduce the world to her newfound love of God- in the form of a self-composed musical piece, and so our dinner was quite late and needed to be a bit fast. We opted first for Subway, but soon learned it had closed early for unknown reasons. And so here we are, 4 years in, eating Popeye's fried chicken.  mmm healthy (this after I vetoed McDonald's as an option).



Additionally I would like to call your attention to our first anniversary mead.

When I purchased equipment for the making of Singapore beer, I kind of got a bit of a bug, a desire to ferment anything I could.  However, practicalities prevented my most outrageous ideas, and I decided to try a very simple mead.  Mead, if you are not aware, is about the simplest alcoholic drink you can make. It's honey.  and water.  and the yeast of course to turn the sugar in the honey into alcohol.  You wouldn't expect much from that, would you?  And yet, it can be a very pleasant, sweet wine-like drink.  So I made some using a super simple recipe found online.  I basically diluted honey in water, heated it in a saucepan- mostly just to get it mixed and in solution, and poured it in a sterilized 1.5 L water bottle, adding only the most minor of additives- a few raisins, one sliced up lime (rind and all), and the yeast-- regular dry bread yeast.  I put an air lock on (secured with saran wrap) and let it go.  In no time I had a pretty nice drink, albeit a little alcohol rich in flavor.  Probably the biggest downside to mead is that a good one takes some serious time to prepare.  The fermentation is done quickly, within 1-2 weeks, but the mixture clarifies and mellows over time.  Thus many recipes recommend 6 months to a year of maturation.

I set this one up on July 4th, so our anniversary made a good date to wait for in order to avoid drinking overly early.




Now, if I do say so myself, I have done a pretty outstanding job with this first mead.  Even Alli likes it.  AND it pairs well with fried chicken.  What more could you want?