The Mad Kitchen Scientist

That's a lot of funky cherries! Notice the brown slush in the bottom of the box. But even such nastiness will not deter the diehard fermenter. Hey...all those cherries on top are Perfectly Good.

I am totally obsessed with fermentation. At a party at the house of some friends a little more than a year ago, I picked up the book "Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Food" by Sandor Ellix Katz. Check him out here. I haven't looked back since.

Using this book and various resources on the internet, as well as the book "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon , I have made my own kimchi, sauerkraut, tempeh, carrot-ginger pickles, goat cheese, vinegar, hard cider and ginger ale. The ginger ale is still brewing, but all the other things have been shockingly successful. Well...except for that one terrifying batch of vinegar. But that's for another post.

I have a clandestine source (as in, if I tell you I'll have to kill you) of mass quantities of random organic produce and fruits. It's not a regular supply, so I have to be prepared when a windfall arrives to start fermenting.

Last night on the summer solstice, soon after I had gotten the little one down to sleep, I was just getting ready to do some reading or crochet, when I received a sudden windfall of past-their-prime organic cherries at my door step. About 25 lbs of them! It wasn't pretty folks. These cherries needed to be dealt with immediately!

I dropped my plans for a peaceful evening and immediately went to work sorting, cleaning and then mashing them up for a nice solstice wine. Well, I hope it's nice anyway. I think part of the fun of fermentation is that it's always a gamble of sorts.

Cherries all mashed up and ready to become solstice wine. Too bad it will be almost a year before it's ready to drink.

Update on LIfe in the Twilight Zone

On Monday my car caught on fire. And yes, I was driving it at the time.

Apparently there was this little piece of metal on the back of the battery that came disconnected. Really small thing. BUT it was the only thing keeping the stupid battery from turning itself into a fireball. There had been mysterious electrical problems for months -- mostly, I noticed, after driving on my friend's bumpy dirt driveway. Then suddenly Monday, Birch and I are tooling along Tunnel Road when -- SPARKS! SMOKE! HOLY CRAP -- FLAMES!!!! All shooting out from under the hood.

The engine died. Then it restarted. Then it died again. We were in the middle of the intersection trying to turn onto Riceville Road to get to my friend's house -- she of the Bumpy Driveway -- to pick up my daughter. A man in an electrician's truck shouts "Your car's on fire!" and I totally respond with this only-slightly-less-rude "No shit, dude!" sort of answer (which I later regretted). I got the engine to start again and pulled off the road into the parking lot of a Rite-Aid. Then we jump out of the flaming chariot, I pop the hood and Electrician Guy jumps out of his truck and -- I'm not making this up -- beats out the fire with a rag.

Seriously. Birch and I were ready to run and hide behind the nearest dumpster, and this total stranger jumps in and puts the fire out for me. Wow. He also disconnected the battery for us. How decent is that? Then he made sure we had AAA or something and drove off into the sunset.

The day just got weirder. We ended up spending a few hours in that parking lot after one dead cell phone; a couple of big, fat, time-consuming mix ups with AAA; a siren-blaring visit from the very-adorable guys of Fire Station #8, and finally the arrival of A.) My friend of the Bumpy Driveway and the Helpful Toddler Brigade (i.e. my daughter and her son), and B.) a super-helpful tow truck driver who actually just went on and replaced the battery for me right then and there.

Turns out that if Electrician Guy had not jumped in there and put the fire out when he did, either the engine would have been ruined OR the entire car would have just burned to the ground. So...THANK YOU Electrician Guy!!! I have no idea what your name is or even the name of the company you work for, but THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart!

Oh...did I mention that that same afternoon the wheel almost fell off my husband's truck? He almost didn't make it home. 3 out of the 5 lug nuts on one of his wheels were just GONE. Just like that. It was really strange.

So the next day, I call AAA again to get the truck towed to the shop. They LOVED that. And guess what? They sent out the SAME tow truck driver. When he called me to verify that he was coming, he asked "You're not having battery trouble again, are you ma'am?"

This Year

According to my friend's sun sign horoscope book, this year (as in the 42nd year of my life) is supposed to be a crux. This is, in many ways, supposed to be the single most important year of my life, as far as learning and evolving. Wow...talk about big expectations.

But it does feel big to me. I can't say why really. I've liked the number 42 ever since I was in college and my friend and I painted that number (along with a lot of really bad artwork) onto the side of her little gray Honda because it is The Answer to The Question in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

You know...The Question. As in, "what is the meaning of life?"

Anyway, I can't say how this is going to be such a big year...I can't see any tangible evidence of the possiblity of significant growth...or anything else, really. However, we do have some interesting plans in the works:

THE BIG LIGHTS OUT EXPERIMENT:
Inspired by a random blog (which I can't remember the name of now, or I would post the link) detailing the interesting benefits of living with only the light of the sun and candles, our family is going to try 3 days of no artificial lights. None whatsoever. Not even the refrigerator light! If all goes well, we will extend that experiment in the more light-rich summer months.

THE BIG FAST:
Even though I'm still nursing (only a little, but still...) Scott and I are going to do a gentle -- as in For Whimps and Nursing Mothers Only -- cleanse and juice fast together over a weekend. I know I can't go hardcore with it (which I actually enjoy -- I'm a sicko, I know) but I am looking forward to it as a boost to my physical health, which feels like it has been steadily sliding downhill since I got pregnant with V three years ago.

THE Y
We are joining the Y, man. Yep. YMCA. I've avoided it for years because I thought I'd never use the membership (which isn't cheap). And we really can't afford it. Okay. No. I mean we REALLY can't afford it. BUT I finally realized this: The Y has free childcare. And a sauna. And a heated swimming pool. Enough said.

LEARNING TO CROCHET
This is so sexy, I know...I am totally taking a crochet class at the community college. I know it's that thing that grandmas do and it's something that people can apparently teach themselves just from being near other people that crochet, but I am severely Yarn Impaired and I just can't seem to pick it up. So I am taking a class. And I am STOKED! I mean, seriously, I am psyched like I just won a trip to Hawaii or something. I know....sexy, right?

Happy New Year!

Making Maeve

This is Maeve. She is the Waldorf "heavy doll" I made for Veda's Christmas gift. Making this "simple" doll was waaayyy more complicated than I had anticipated, but it was very rewarding and enjoyable as well.

I made her from raw sheep's wool that I cleaned and carded, pieces of cotton fabric from an old t-shirt and wool yarn. The hair was very labor-intensive! I wound wool yarn around a rectangular piece of cardboard, taped the sides with painters tape to hold it in place, cut the loops on the sides and stitched down the middle. Then I had to hand-sew each strip onto her head. It took forever!

Her head is a ton of tightly packed wool. Her body contains wool and some lentils to give her weight. I made the clothes from an old t-shirt. I also made her a little wool hat from an old sweater and a backpack so Veda can carry her around like a baby.

Most of the instructions I found in this book, but I had to look up how to make the hair online. I also added the lentils myself because I wanted her to have weight.

Homemade Holidays

Completely amazing dollhouse made by my father.

My big, fat Christmas dinner - kickin' it old school.

Snow People on Christmas!

The tree with gifts

Our Winter Solstice altar

This year, for the first time in a decade, I stayed home for Christmas.

Usually we drive either to Florida or Indiana (and trust me, NOBODY should be driving to Northern Indiana in December!) to visit family. But stress and craziness of all the traveling always leaves me feeling utterly wiped out - mentally and physically. So this year we opted to have a quiet holiday.

We celebrated the winter solstice with a fine meal, gifts and candle lighting, as we always do. Then my son left to go to Florida with his father, which made me sad. But I decided that Veda, Scott and I would do our best to enjoy Christmas this year, even with one of our flock missing.

And Christmas...it was truly wonderful! We awoke on Christmas morning to fresh snow...and it continued snowing all day. I cooked a big, traditional dinner...just took my time since nobody cared when we ate. We build a Snow Daddy and Snow Baby. We went sledding. We sat around and did absolutely nothing. Heaven!

We gave simple gifts...almost all handmade. Scott made me a beautiful pasta drying rack from oak. I made Veda a Waldorf doll I had sewn. She also received a doll house that my father made by hand from pieces of the old oak tree from my parents' backyard.

San Francisco

Inka, Kim and Kim's aunt (who officiated the wedding) during the ceremony

Veda looked lovely in her sparkly red dress. Too bad she had to be physically removed by Scott and missed the entire ceremony due to her siren-like shrieking.

Silvio was the ringbearer

The wedding cake -- it was quite delicious!

The newlyweds roasting in the sun after the ceremony

Birch and Kim's son Silvio running with the wild pack of kids that took over China Camp after the ceremony.

Birch being Birch in front of the Chinatown Gate in San Francisco

Chilling inside an ancient redwood tree in Muir Woods

My sistah Kim took us to the airport for the trip home

The new tattoo Kim gave me the night before we left

We just returned from our first actual vacation together as a family! We went to San Francisco for my friend Kim's wedding. I'm lucky to have close friends that live in excellent vacation spots!

Birch and I had been out there before to visit Kim and her son Silvio, but Scott had never been to California at all, and it was our first long airplane trip together with Veda (although I have quite a bit of hard-won experience in that area in a solo capacity...I travel a lot with one or both kids to visit grandparents).

The 6-7 hours of flying time and 2-3 hours of layovers each way was...errr...challenging, to say the least. Anyone with a 2-year-old knows that long trips with time changes, routine changes and lots of sitting still are not so fun for the active toddler (or the toddler's parents, or anyone else in the near vicinity).

But the trip...oh, the trip! I SO miss traveling! It was so incredible to spend 4 days seeing new sights and experiencing new things with my family. Sooooo good to get away from our routine. And the wedding itself was inspiring...

Kim and her new wife Inka live on boats in Galilee Harbor, an artsy, progressive houseboat community in Sausalito with a history that goes back to the hippie days of the 1960's. During our stay we got to participate in the wedding celebration with their amazing group of dynamic and fascinating friends. We were given one friend's entire apartment to use during out stay and were given rides to and from the airport and all the wedding activities by other friends, each with their own incredible life story.

September

Apple peeling time!

This is my favorite month! When I was a kid, I'm pretty sure it was because of my birthday (Sept. 24). Well, heck, it's probably still because of my birthday. But there's more to it now...

Growing up in Florida, there was, of course, no change of seasons, except the change from Tourist Season to Not-So-Much Tourist Season. As far as the weather went, we had hurricane season and then the rest of the year. Temperature-wise, things went from Unbelievably Hot and Humid (summer) to Slightly Less Hot and Humid (not summer) with a rare freeze here and there to keep us on our toes.

Here in NC, we have these magical in-betweens called fall and spring and then the extremes of summer and winter. I love September the best because it's when the heat gradually begins to fade and you can feel fall coming, although it's not quite here. Still nice and warm, but not horribly hot. The nights cool down. Clear days become brilliant and the mountains stand out proudly from a tart blue sky, flashing the last of their green hues before putting on the browns and reds of autumn.

Oh, and the flowers and fruit! We get blue asters in September..and cosmos. And then there are the apples. I never cared much about apples when I lived in Florida, but now we have an annual ritual of picking apples then peeling them and making apple sauce, apple butter, apple pies...all that good stuff.

Although I do consider myself a person more inclined to tropical climates and I dream of someday living on a warm, sunny island, I know that if and when I leave here I will miss the texture of the seasons. Every September, I'll feel wistful for that first bit of chill in the air, the ritual of setting up the apple peeler in the kitchen, the cheering sight of that certain brisk shade of blue sky...