cultcha

well~~trying to separate Food from My Life is like.. well: pick a cliche'.
y'all know better; there is no tif without food
so i'm no longer keeping a separate blog for food, at least for now. i don't have time for it and haven't done anything with it anyway.
SO let me tell ya a little somethin' i been up to:

i have a little menagerie of microorganisms in the kitchen!
i've been greatly inspired by Jessica Prentice, and her new book, _Full_Moon_Feast_ (highly recommended), and the awesome exhaustive-yet-relaxed how-to, _wild_fermentation_, by Sandor Ellix Katz. it's the best!!

so far i've made kefir ( similar to yogurt, with a bit more tAnG ),
i'm fostering a sourdough starter, and just finished putting my first batch of yogurt in its warm incubator home.
the kefir "grains" were given to me by one of my teachers at Bauman~~Julie, and the sourdough starter was given to me by my new friend Coronado.


the kefir is pre-school easy: pour some milk ( i used whole, raw, from a local dairy~~Claravale Farms) over the kefir grains in a sterile jar, and let it sit out for a few days.
if the lid is on tight, it becomes effervescent, and needs to be opened once a day. shake it up to keep it all mixed up, or let it be, and you have a sour-cream-type spread. refrigerate. you can take the "grains" out, and use them again for something else, or for more kefir.

the sourdough was started with a grape in a whole wheat flour-and-water mixture. the grape was discarded once the stew began to bubble.
i added a few more spoonfuls of water and flour (and some leftover quinoa), and keep it in my sunny kitchen sill during the day. it's been developing for about a week now.

for the yogurt, i (gently) heated whole raw milk on the stove until it began to bubble. stirring. then i let it cool till i could stick my clean finger in it, and it still felt hot. I mixed in a tablespoon of active yogurt (Straus!). I poured it into a preheated steril jar, and stuck the jar in a preheated (with hot water) cooler.
in about twelve hours, i'll check it to see how it tastes.

fun!


photos:
kefir and kefir baby
sourdough in the jungle window
cooking the milk
the yogurt incubator
yogurt jar