We ran out of mirin the other day. I’m pretty sure I bought it at Lunardi’s early in the pandemic, but when I went there to replace it, I didn’t find anything that looked like the bottle I’d been using. The only thing I found was Kikkoman Aji-Mirin but a quick web search suggested I avoid it because it’s loaded with sugar.

Today, I went to a large Japanese supermarket near my allergist. They had several brands of Aji-Mirin (literally “tastes like mirin”), and some “Honteri” (non-alcoholic sweet mirin-like seasoning), but I couldn’t find any “hon mirin” (real mirin). There were a lot of empty spots on the shelf, though, so it might be a supply chain issue.

Of course, I had recycled the old bottle before taking a picture of the label, so I’m not 100% sure I was using real mirin anyway – but I’m going to keep looking.

We had a quiet day today, starting, as usual, with a trip to the Farmers’ Market and a walk through Los Gatos. After that, Diane led a meeting of the Shir Hadash Book Group (on Zoom) and I talked about the Ritual Committee at the New Member Orientation session (in person!).

Our travel agent sent us the proposal for his reworked 3-week river trip on the Rhine, Moselle, and Main rivers next fall, changing from three cruise segments on AmaWaterways to two segments on Uniworld, with two more days aboard ship. He promised a “slightly lower” price and delivered – we’ll save two full dollars!

One of my Facebook friends asked me when I was going to stop the “Pandemic Journal” and my thoughts immediately turned to Mike Angelo’s conversation with Victor Pope in Mad Magazine’s “The Agony and The Agony” from 1966.

I had a subscription to Mad back then, but I didn’t bring those copies with me to California. I was pleased to find the whole issue online; not all of the humor aged well, but a surprising amount did.