My latest foray into fermented foods is sourdough bread. A friend of mine brought some San Francisco sourdough back from California with her after the holidays, and I have been searching for something comparable on the east coast ever since. I’ve purchased sourdough from bakeries at supermarkets and bakeries, and when I can find sourdough it’s never the strong, bitter stuff I have had from California. So I did some research.
As it turns out, sourdough and San Francisco sourdough are entirely different things. Sourdough is simply the bread that has been made for years, before modern active dry yeast was produced. In the old days, if you wanted yeast, you would have to keep it alive yourself. It was known as “starter“. When you made bread, you would put some starter in your flour and water mixture, and your dough would rise. When making San Francisco sourdough, it’s basically the opposite: you make a bunch of starter and then put some flour into it to reach a bread dough consistency.
So I sent an envelope to an organization known as Carl’s Friends, who out of the kindness of their hearts will mail you some dried sourdough starter if you send them a pre-stamped envelope. Upon receiving an envelope full of white powder (which was unnerving having just read Demon in the Freezer a few weeks ago), I reactivated the yeast and bacteria mixture using flour and a little potato water. Within a few days I had a frothing, gummy mixture of living starter. It had the smell of beer and wet latex paint.
I made San Francisco sourdough bread last weekend from a recipe I found on the Internet. It turned out with an amazing aroma. I do not have any photos because it was gone too quickly. I’ll try making some more this weekend. Hopefully it will stick around a little longer.
A couple of weeks ago on Boing Boing I read about making sauerkraut and decided to give it a try. Mine didn’t ever look as gross as the photos Boing Boing showed. I sliced a head of green cabbage and red cabbage and let is sit in a big pickle jar. That was two weeks ago today, and I decided to “harvest it”. I dumped it into tupperwares and put it in the fridge, where it should last a few months.
Opening my sauerkraut. Photo credit: Preston
Next up I’m going to try green cabbage with carrots and caraway seeds. I need to slice it a little thinner though because it is a little too crispy.
The process of fermentation fascinates me, and since refrigeration has come into common use, fermentation has waned in popularity. We still consume lots of beer, wine, soy sauce, chocolate, vanilla and yogurt, but I can’t imagine that our factory-produced food has the same taste and nutritional value. One of the great benefits of fermented foods is the live (good) bacteria culture, and the canning process destroys it.
I’d love to try making mead, yogurt, and sourdough bread.
Last week I had my first automobile-bicycle incident. At the end of a weekend that was just shy of 50 miles, I was riding from College Park back to Silver Spring. While riding down University, I stopped at the light for New Hampshire and made eye contact with the woman driving a yellow Nissan Xterra behind me. She kept her distance. After about two blocks, nearly to Carroll, she was still behind me. Then, as I’m cruising down University I see this yellow flash come from my left and pass directly in front of me. Squeezing my brakes, I came to a slow plow-down-the-passenger-side of her vehicle, leaving a justice-scrape from the clips. As I continued my journey, I pushed forward the mirror and finished with a springy bounce backward toward the pavement.
Remembering in an instant how a certain friend fell and her shoes stayed clipped, I twisted my legs as the pavement approached to release my shoes. It almost seemed over before it had begun. Next thing I knew I jumped to my feet and pulled my bike onto the curb. My knees were scraped. That was all. I was pretty certain. I exchanged information with the driver and got back on my merry way to Silver Spring with blood dripping down my shin.
My wound, a couple of days later. I shaved around it so that I didn't rip out my leg hair when I changed bandages.
I didn’t have time to stop and clean up before meeting Preston at Starbucks. Maybe I should have started cleaning my leg in the bathroom rather than the sitting area of Starbucks.
Looking back, I’m pretty certain that the driver thought I was moving much slower than I actually was. She likely thought she could blast past me and turn before I got there. Instead, she just turned directly into me.
Lesson for drivers: cyclists are likely moving much faster than you think, not pedestrian speed. Typically they are moving 18 to 25 miles per hour. Occasionally faster.
Lesson for cyclists: drivers don’t realize how fast you’re moving.
Last night while driving home after dark, I saw flashing lights alongside Georgia Avenue in Woodside. Initially I thought it was a bicyclist. A little closer and I could see that it was not moving like a bicyclist. Then I saw arms waving around. But it was moving; it wasn’t someone trying to flag anyone down in an emergency. As the person got into my headlights, I saw what it was: a unicyclist. I never thought someone would use a unicycle as an actual form of transportation except for this guy. I wish I had turned around and gotten his picture.
Bicycles are not allowed on the DC Metro during rush hour. Maybe the midnight Georgia Ave unicycler found a loophole?
Yesterday while removing my address from Direct Mail America’s database, I was presented with this crap:
Important: You have selected to eliminate all mailings from organizations participating in the DMA Mail Preference Service.
Are you sure you want to proceed?
The average household can save $1422 dollars per year from marketing offers. By eliminating all mail offers not only will you miss out on these savings, but you’ll miss out on at least 80% of all commercial offers and discounts!
And you will miss the environmental benefits of shopping at home rather than driving to the mall!
By replacing just two shopping trips to the mall each year with shopping by catalogs or direct mail, DMA estimates that Americans could:
Reduce the amount we drive by 3.3 billion miles.
Reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 3 billion pounds.
I’ve noticed many times on taking my recycling to my floor’s trash room, that nearly everything in the recycling bin is beer bottles, wine bottles, and liquor bottles. And they aren’t all mine.
So I just discovered this cool bit of information: digital cameras (such as cell phones) are infrared sensitive, which means that if you point an IR remote control at the lens, you can see whether or not your batteries work.
As notedearlier, I have started listening to my iPod and riding a bicycle, both with the added benefit that it makes it difficult for panhandlers to approach me. But they have been a little more aggressive recently. They try yelling over my music or waving at me before I bicycle past them. I have started to listen to my iPod while riding, but it is only a matter of time until they adapt and begin yelling before I speed past them.
By use of this photo I am in no way suggesting that Seven of Nine or Jeri Ryan is in any way homeless. I am personally unaware of her current financial and/or housing situations.
This weekend while shopping at The Giant, I saw a man wearing a kilt. Now I’m not passing judgement, and more power to a man who can do something like that, but I thought it was rather entertaining that he obviously wasn’t on his way to or from any pub performance or anything of the sort. His hair was dissheveled and he was wearing a baggy tee shirt and shower flip flops. It was likely the most comfortable thing to throw on or the only thing he owned that was clean.
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